CIVIL WAR

[kenmurray]

Tales Of The Gun: Guns Of The Civil War:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux-VnSlP7yM

[Dealey Joe]

American Civil WarFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAmerican Civil WarThe Battle of GettysburgDate April 12, 1861 – April 9, 1865 (last shot fired June 22, 1865)Location Southern United States, Northeastern United States, Western United States, Atlantic OceanResult Union victoryTerritorial integrity of the United States of America preservedReconstructionSlavery abolishedBelligerents United States Confederate StatesCommanders and leaders Abraham Lincoln Winfield Scott George B. McClellan Henry Wager Halleck Ulysses S. Grant Gideon Wellesand others Jefferson Davis P. G. T. Beauregard Joseph E. Johnston Robert E. Lee Stephen Malloryand othersStrength2,100,000 1,064,000Casualties and losses140,414 killed in action[1]~ 365,000 total dead[1]275,200 wounded 72,524 killed in action[1]~ 260,000 total dead137,000+ wounded[show] v d eTheaters of the American Civil WarThe American Civil War (1861–1865), often referred to simply as The Civil War in the United States, was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ("the Confederacy"); the other 25 states supported the federal government ("the Union"). After four years of warfare, mostly within the Southern states, the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation. Issues that led to war were partially resolved in the Reconstruction Era that followed, though others remained unresolved.In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against expanding slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republicans strongly advocated nationalism, and in their 1860 platform they denounced threats of disunion as avowals of treason. After a Republican victory, but before the new administration took office on March 4, 1861, seven cotton states declared their secession and joined to form the Confederate States of America. Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan and the incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion. The other eight slave states rejected calls for secession at this point. No country in the world recognized the Confederacy.Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state to recapture federal property, which led to declarations of secession by four more slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union seized control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade. Land warfare in the East was inconclusive in 1861–62, as the Confederacy beat back Union efforts to capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia, notably during the Peninsular Campaign. In September 1862, the Confederate campaign in Maryland ended in defeat at the Battle of Antietam, which dissuaded the British from intervening.[2] Days after that battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal.[3]In 1863, Confederate general Robert E. Lee's northward advance ended in defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg. To the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River after the Battle of Shiloh and Siege of Vicksburg, splitting the Confederacy in two and destroying much of their western army. Due to his western successes, Ulysses S. Grant was given command of the eastern army in 1864, and organized the armies of William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip Sheridan and others to attack the Confederacy from all directions, increasing the North's advantage in manpower. Grant restructured the union army, and put other generals in command of divisions of the army that were to support his push into Virginia. He fought several battles of attrition against Lee through the Overland Campaign to seize Richmond, though in the face of fierce resistance he altered his plans and led the Siege of Petersburg which nearly finished off the rest of Lee's army. Meanwhile, Sherman captured Atlanta and marched to the sea, destroying Confederate infrastructure along the way. When the Confederate attempt to defend Petersburg failed, the Confederate army retreated but was pursued and defeated, which resulted in Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.The American Civil War was one of the earliest true industrial wars. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, and mass-produced weapons were employed extensively. The practices of total war, developed by Sherman in Georgia, and of trench warfare around Petersburg foreshadowed World War I in Europe. It remains the deadliest war in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. Historian John Huddleston estimates the death toll at ten percent of all Northern males 20–45 years old, and 30 percent of all Southern white males aged 18–40.[4] Victory for the North meant the end of the Confederacy and of slavery in the United States, and strengthened the role of the federal government. The social, political, economic and racial issues of the war decisively shaped the reconstruction era that lasted to 1877.

[Dealey Joe]

The American Civil War broke out in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter in Charleston SC. In December 1860, Federal troops had withdrawn to the island fort in Charleston Harbor soon after South Carolina’s declaration of secession to avoid street confrontations with passing U.S. soldiers. In January, President James Buchanan had attempted to re-supply the garrison by sending the Star of the West, but Confederate artillery drove it away. In March, President Lincoln followed Buchanan's example, notifying South Carolina Governor Francis W. Pickens that without Confederate resistance to resupply or an attack on the fort, there would be no effort "to throw in men, arms, or ammunition" without further notice. Confederate President Davis with his cabinet decided to capture Fort Sumter before the relief fleet arrived. On April 12, 1861, General Beauregard fired upon the federal troops occupying Fort Sumter, forcing their surrender.[97]Following the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln directed states to provide troops to recapture Sumter and all other federal property that had been seized without Congressional authorization.[98] The proclamation of April 15 called for 75,000 volunteers for an initial recruitment of three-months. This sparked the four border states of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina to initiate secession proceedings rather than provide troops to march into neighboring Southern states.In May, Federal troops crossed into Confederate territory along the entire border from the Chesapeake Bay to New Mexico. The Confederate victory at Fort Sumter was followed by Confederate victories at the Battle of Big Bethel VA in June, Battle of First Manassas in July and in August, the Battle of Wilson's Creek in southwest Missouri. At all three, Confederate forces could not follow up their victory due to inadequate supply and shortages of fresh troops to exploit their successes. Following each battle, Federals maintained a military presence and their occupation of Washington DC, Fort Monroe VA and Springfield MO. Both North and South began training up armies for major fighting the next year.[99]In August, Hatteras NC was captured ending Confederate commerce-raiding just south of the Chesapeake Bay. Early November a Union expedition at sea secured Port Royal and Beaufort SC just south of Charleston, seizing Confederate-burned cotton fields along with escaped and owner-abandoned "contraband" field hands. December saw the loss of Georgetown SC, just north of Charleston. Federals there began a war-long policy of burning grain supplies up rivers into the interior wherever they could not occupy.[100]Incursions: 1862The victories of 1861 were followed by a series of defeats east and west in early 1862. The Federal intent was to (1) secure the Mississippi River, (2) seize or close Confederate ports and (3) march on Richmond. The Confederate intent was to repel the invader on all fronts. At the opening of campaigning season, Missouri was still contested, Kentucky had declared for the United States and much of northwest Virginia was controlled by the Federals.[101]. In February and March, most of Missouri and Kentucky were Union “occupied, consolidated, and used as staging areas for advances further South”. Following the repulse of Confederate counter-attack at Pittsburg Landing TN, permanent Federal occupation expanded to include northwestern Arkansas, south down the Mississippi River and east up the Tennessee River.[103] Union forces then pushed south along the Mississippi River to Memphis, where at the Battle of Memphis the River Defense Fleet was sunk and Confederates withdrew from northern Mississippi and northern Alabama. New Orleans was captured April 29 by a combined Army-Navy force under Admiral Farragut, and the Confederacy lost control of the mouth of the Mississippi River, conceding large agricultural resources that supported the Union’s sea-supplied logistics base.[104]Union occupation expanded into northern Virginia, and their control of the Mississippi extended south to Nashville TN, but as of April 21, the Confederacy still controlled 72% of its population.[103] Confederates had suffered major reverses everywhere but Virginia. Federal forces disrupted Missouri and Arkansas; they had broken through in western Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana. Along the Confederacy’s shores it had closed ports and made garrisoned lodgments on every coastal Confederate state but Alabama and Texas.[105] Although scholars sometimes assess the Union blockade as ineffectual until the last few months of the war in an “international law” sense, in the first months it disrupted Confederate privateers, making it “almost impossible to bring their prizes into Confederate ports”.[106] Nevertheless, British firms developed small fleets of blockade running companies and the Ordnance Department secured its own blockade runners for dedicated munition cargos.[107] The Civil War saw the advent of fleets of armored warships deployed in sustained blockades at sea. After some success against the Union blockade, in March the ironclad CSS Virginia was forced into port and burned by Confederates at their retreat. Despite several attempts mounted from their port cities, Confederates were unable to break out of the Union blockade including Commodore Josiah Tattnall’s ironclads from Savannah in 1862 and another in 1863, both as with the CSS Virginia, compromised in combat by engine failure.[108] Given material shortages in the Confederacy, Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory placed his hopes in a European-built ironclad fleet, but they were never realized. On the other hand, four new-built commerce raiders were procured in England and saw Confederate service. Some fast blockade runners were sold in Confederate ports and converted into cruisers. Two of these effectively raided up and down the Atlantic coast until the end of the war.[109]In the east, Union forces could not close on Richmond. General McClellan boarded ships to land his army on the Lower Peninsula of Virginia, leaving Washington behind. Lee subsequently ended that threat to Richmond from the east, then Union General John Pope attacked again overland from the north only to be repulsed at Second Manassas. Lee’s strike north was turned back at Antietam MD, then Burnside’s offensive was disastrously ended at Fredericksburg VA in December. Both armies then turned to winter quarters to refit, replenish the ranks and train for the next spring campaign.[110]In an attempt to seize the initiative and influence U.S. Congressional elections, two major Confederate incursions into Union territory had been launched in August and September 1862. Both Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky and Lee's invasion of Maryland were decisively repulsed and both Confederate armies barely escaped capture. Kentucky and Maryland remained in Union control, and by October 13, 1862 the Confederacy controlled but 63% of its population.[103] Civil War scholar Alan Nevins argues that 1862 was the strategic high water mark of the Confederacy.[111] The failures of the two invasions were attributed to the same irrecoverable shortcomings: lack of manpower, lack of supplies including serviceable shoes, and exhaustion after long marches without adequate food.[112]The failed Middle Tennessee campaign was ended January 2, 1863. The South lost any hope for gain there in the inconclusive battle at Murfreesboro, both sides losing the largest percentage of casualties suffered during the war, and it was followed by another strategic withdrawal.[113]The Confederacy won a significant victory on April 26, 1863, repulsing the Federal advance on to Richmond at Chancellorsville VA, but the Union consolidated positions along the Virginia coast and the Chesapeake Bay. Federals maintained control of most of Tennessee, they advanced along the Mississippi River Valley to close on Vicksburg, and they seized permanent control of Baton Rouge.The Union gained the Mississippi River following the capture of Vicksburg July 4 and Port Hudson July 8, effectively cutting the Confederacy in two. Victories in September and November followed at Knoxville and Chattanooga TN. Confederate operations in July brought draft riots in New York City, Morgan’s raid into Ohio and Robert E. Lee’s strike into Pennsylvania, which was subsequently repulsed at Gettysburg. Despite Pickett’s famous charge and other acts of valor. Southern newspapers assessed the campaign as “The Confederates did not gain a victory, neither did the enemy.”[114]For the remainder of the war fighting was restricted inside the South, resulting in a slow but continuous loss of territory. In early 1864, the Confederacy still controlled 53% of its population, but facing Union campaigns for Atlanta and the Virginia Wilderness, it withdrew into further defensive positions. Union offensives continued when Sherman undertook his March to the Sea and Grant besieged Petersburg.[115]Mobile Bay was closed by the Union Blockade in August, sealing the Gulf coast east of the Mississippi River. In the western theater, Nashville was a major defeat for the Confederacy in December.In April 1863, the CS Congress authorized a Volunteer Navy, all officers and crew regularly enlisted and wearing uniforms. Many of the personnel were foreign, especially British. They were required to supply their own ships and equipment, but they received 90% of their captures at auction, 25% of any U.S. warships or transports captured or destroyed. Confederate cruisers raided merchant ship commerce but for one exception in 1864.[116]Wilmington and Charleston had more shipping while “blockaded” than before the beginning of hostilities. Confederates estimated that the Union Blockade interdicted no more than 10% of the cotton exported, but the Lincoln administration claimed one of every three blockade runners were being captured.[117] The Confederacy had a total of eighteen commerce destroying cruisers altogether, which over the course of the war seriously disrupted Federal commerce at sea, and financially increasing shipping insurance rates 900 percent.[118]Following the capture of the CSS Atlanta the previous year on the Savannah River, Commodore Tattnall attempted to break the Union blockade again in 1863 with the ironclad CSS Savannah but again, unsuccessfully.[119] From April 1864, the ironclad CSS Albemarle engaged Union gunboats and sank or cleared them in several engagements for six months on the Roanoke River NC. The most successful Confederate merchant raider, CSS Alabama had ranged the Atlantic for two years, sinking 58 vessels worth $6,54,000. She was sunk in June by the chain-clad USS Kearsarge in the only cruiser-ironclad engagement, off Cherbourg, France.[120] Mobile AL fell by sea-based amphibious assault in August 1864.[edit]Collapse: 1865The first three months of 1865 saw the Federal Carolina Campaign, devastating a wide swath of the Confederate heartland. The “breadbasket of the Confederacy” in the Great Valley of Virginia was occupied by Philip Sheridan. The Union Blockade captured Fort Fisher NC, and Sherman finally captured Charleston SC by land attack. In April 1865 the Confederacy controlled 34% of its population.[104] Senior Confederate officials met with Lincoln and his aides in February, but rejected Lincoln's invitation to return to the Union with compensation for slaves lost by emancipation. The Confederacy controlled no ports, harbors or navigable rivers. Railroads were captured or had ceased operating. Its major food producing regions had been war ravaged or occupied. Its administration extended to three pockets of territory in southern Virginia-North Carolina, central Alabama-Florida, and Texas.[104] Its armies were defeated or disbanding.In February, the port at Wilmington NC which had become the premier blockade running port of the Confederacy, fell. Plans to open a new port at the mouth of the Apalachicola River for blockade running collapsed.[121] The French-built ironclad CSS Stonewall was purchased from Denmark and set sail from Spain to break the Union blockade in March.The Davis policy was independence or nothing, while Lee's army was wracked by disease and desertion, barely holding the trenches defending Jefferson Davis' capital. When the Union broke through Lee's lines at Petersburg, Richmond fell immediately. Lee raced west to escape, but his dwindling army was caught. His surrendering the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox VA on April 9, 1865 marked the end of the Confederacy. Some high officials escaped to Europe but President Davis was captured May 10; all remaining Confederate forces surrendered by June 1865. The U.S. Army took control of the Confederate areas without post-surrender insurgency or guerrilla warfare against the army, but disbanding the armies was subsequently marred by a great deal of local violence, feuding and revenge killings.[122]Historian Gary Gallagher concludes: "The Confederacy capitulated in the spring of 1865 because northern armies had demonstrated their ability to crush organized southern military resistance....Civilians who had maintained faith in their defenders despite material hardship and social disruption similarly recognized that the end had come.... Most Confederates knew that as a people they had expended blood and treasure in profusion before ultimately collapsing in the face of northern power sternly applied."[123]Historian Frank Lawrence Owsley argued that the Confederacy "died of states' rights."[4][124] The central government was denied requisitioned soldiers and money by governors and state legislatures because they feared that Richmond would encroach on the rights of the states. Georgia's governor Joseph Brown warned of a conspiracy by Jefferson Davis to destroy states' rights and individual liberty. Brown declaimed: "Almost every act of usurpation of power, or of bad faith, has been conceived, brought forth and nurtured in secret session." The first conscription act in North America authorizing Davis to draft soldiers was the "essence of military despotism."[125]Vice President Alexander Stephens feared losing the very form of republican government. Allowing President Davis to threaten "arbitrary arrests" to draft state officials holding "bomb-proof" draft exemptions conferred "more power than the English Parliament had ever bestowed on the king. History proved the dangers of such unchecked authority." Newly abolished draft exemptions included newspaper editors, and Stephens took that to mean that the Confederate government intended to suppress the peace meetings in North Carolina, and to muzzle targeted presses such as the Raleigh Standard to control elections in that state. Southerners should never view liberty as "subordinate to independence" because the cry of "independence first and liberty second" was a "fatal delusion". As Rable concludes, "For Stephens, the essence of patriotism, the heart of the Confederate cause, rested on an unyielding commitment to traditional rights. In his idealist vision of politics, military necessity, pragmatism, and compromise meant nothing".[126]In 1863 governor Pendleton Murrah of Texas determined that state troops were required for defense against Plains Indians and Union successes advancing from the free state of Kansas. He refused to send them East.[127] Zebulon Vance, the governor of North Carolina, had a reputation for hostility to Davis and to his demands. North Carolina showed intense opposition to conscription, resulting in very poor results for recruiting. Governor Vance's faith in states' rights drove him into a stubborn opposition.[128]Despite political differences within the Confederacy, no political parties were formed. Confederates denounced the legitimacy of parties. "Anti-partyism became an article of political faith. Almost nobody, even Davis’s most fervent antagonists, advocated parties."[129] This lack of a functioning two party system, according to historian David M. Potter, caused "real and direct damage" to the Confederate war effort since it prevented the formulation of any effective alternatives to the Davis administration's policies in conducting the war.[130]The survival of the Confederacy depended on a strong base of civilians and soldiers devoted to victory. The soldiers performed well, though increasing numbers deserted in the last year of fighting, and the Confederacy never succeeded in replacing casualties as the Union could. The civilians, although enthusiastic in 1861–62, seem to have lost faith in the future of the Confederacy by 1864, and instead looked to protect their homes and communities. As Rable explains, "As the Confederacy shrank, citizens' sense of the cause more than ever narrowed to their own states and communities. This contraction of civic vision was more than a crabbed libertarianism; it represented an increasingly widespread disillusionment with the Confederate experiment."

[Dealey Joe]

By the end of the war deterioration of the Southern infrastructure was widespread. The number of civilian deaths is unknown. Most of the war was fought in Virginia and Tennessee, but every Southern state was affected as well as Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Indian Territory. Texas and Florida saw the least military action. Much of the damage was caused by military action, but most was caused by lack of repairs and upkeep, and by deliberately using up resources. Historians have recently estimated how much of the devastation was caused by military action.[171] Of 645 counties in 9 Confederate states (excluding Texas and Florida), there was Union military action in 56% of them, containing 63% of the 1860 white population and 64% of the slaves in 1860; however by the time the action took place some people had fled to safer areas, so the exact population exposed to war is unknown.The 11 Confederate states in the 1860 census had 297 towns and cities with 835,000 people; of these 162 with 681,000 people were at one point occupied by Union forces. Eleven were destroyed or severely damaged by war action, including Atlanta (with an 1860 population of 9,600), Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond (with prewar populations of 40,500, 8,100, and 37,900, respectively); the eleven contained 115,900 people in the 1860 census, or 14% of the urban South. Historians have not estimated what their actual population was when Union forces arrived. The number of people (as of 1860) who lived in the destroyed towns represented just over 1% of the Confederacy's 1860 population. In addition, 45 court houses were burned (out of 830). The South's agriculture was not highly mechanized. The value of farm implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81 million; by 1870, there was 40% less, worth just $48 million. Many old tools had broken through heavy use; new tools were rarely available; even repairs were difficult.[172]The economic losses affected everyone. Banks and insurance companies were mostly bankrupt. Confederate currency and bonds were worthless. The billions of dollars invested in slaves vanished. However, most debts were left behind. Most farms were intact but most had lost their horses, mules and cattle; fences and barns were in disrepair. Prices for cotton had plunged. The rebuilding would take years and require outside investment because the devastation was so thorough. One historian has summarized the collapse of the transportation infrastructure needed for economic recovery:[173]"One of the greatest calamities which confronted Southerners was the havoc wrought on the transportation system. Roads were impassable or nonexistent, and bridges were destroyed or washed away. The important river traffic was at a standstill: levees were broken, channels were blocked, the few steamboats which had not been captured or destroyed were in a state of disrepair, wharves had decayed or were missing, and trained personnel were dead or dispersed. Horses, mules, oxen, carriages, wagons, and carts had nearly all fallen prey at one time or another to the contending armies. The railroads were paralyzed, with most of the companies bankrupt. These lines had been the special target of the enemy. On one stretch of 114 miles in Alabama, every bridge and trestle was destroyed, cross-ties rotten, buildings burned, water-tanks gone, ditches filled up, and tracks grown up in weeds and bushes. . . . Communication centers like Columbia and Atlanta were in ruins; shops and foundries were wrecked or in disrepair. Even those areas bypassed by battle had been pirated for equipment needed on the battlefront, and the wear and tear of wartime usage without adequate repairs or replacements reduced all to a state of disintegration."

[Dealey Joe]

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE CIVIL WAR (1861 - 1865)With the Central Bank killed off, fractional reserve banking moved like a virus through numerous state chartered banks instead causing the instability this form of economics thrives on. When people lose their homes someone else wins them for a fraction of their worth. Depression is good news to the lender; but war causes even more debt and dependency than anything else, so if the money changers couldn't have their Central Bank with a license to print money, a war it would have to be. We can see from this quote of the then chancellor of Germany that slavery was not the only cause for the American Civil War. "The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the US, if they remained as one block, and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world."Otto von Bismark chancellor of Germany 1876 On the 12th of April 1861 this economic war began. Predictably Lincoln, needing money to finance his war effort, went with his secretary of the treasury to New York to apply for the necessary loans. The money changers wishing the Union to fail offered loans at 24% to 36%. Lincoln declined the offer. An old friend of Lincoln's, Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago was put in charge of solving the problem of how to finance the war. His solution is recorded as this. "Just get Congress to pass a bill authorising the printing of full legal tender treasury notes... and pay your soldiers with them and go ahead and win your war with them also."Colonel Dick Taylor When Lincoln asked if the people of America would accept the notes Taylor said. "The people or anyone else will not have any choice in the matter, if you make them full legal tender. They will have the full sanction of the government and be just as good as any money; as Congress is given that express right by the Constitution."Colonel Dick Taylor 1 Lincoln agreed to try this solution and printed 450 million dollars worth of the new bills using green ink on the back to distinguish them from other notes. "The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers..... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power."Abraham Lincoln 2 From this we see that the solution worked so well Lincoln was seriously considering adopting this emergency measure as a permanent policy. This would have been great for everyone except the money changers who quickly realised how dangerous this policy would be for them. They wasted no time in expressing their view in the London Times. Oddly enough, while the article seems to have been designed to discourage this creative financial policy, in its put down we're clearly able to see the policies goodness. "If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."Hazard Circular - London Times 1865 From this extract its plan to see that it is the advantage provided by the adopting of this policy which poses a threat to those not using it. 1863, nearly there, Lincoln needed just a bit more money to win the war, and seeing him in this vulnerable state, and knowing that the president could not get the congressional authority to issue more greenbacks, the money changers proposed the passing of the National Bank Act. The act went through. From this point on the entire US money supply would be created out of debt by bankers buying US government bonds and issuing them from reserves for bank notes. The greenbacks continued to be in circulation until 1994, their numbers were not increased but in fact decreased. "In numerous years following the war, the Federal Government ran a heavy surplus. It could not (however) pay off its debt, retire its securities, because to do so meant there would be no bonds to back the national bank notes. To pay off the debt was to destroy the money supply."John Kenneth Galbrath The American economy has been based on government debt since 1864 and it is locked into this system. Talk of paying off the debt without first reforming the banking system is just talk and a complete impossibility. That same year Lincoln had a pleasant surprise. Turns out the Tsar of Russia, Alexander II, was well aware of the money changers scam. The Tsar was refusing to allow them to set up a central bank in Russia. If Lincoln could limit the power of the money changers and win the war, the bankers would not be able to split America and hand it back to Britain and France as planned. The Tsar knew that this handing back would come at a cost which would eventually need to be paid back by attacking Russia, it being clearly in the money changers sights. The Tsar declared that if France or Britain gave help to the South, Russia would consider this an act of war. Britain and France would instead wait in vain to have the wealth of the colonies returned to them, and while they waited Lincoln won the civil war. With an election coming up the next year, Lincoln himself would wait for renewed public support before reversing the National Bank Act he had been pressured into approving during the war. Lincoln's opposition to the central banks financial control and a proposed return to the gold standard is well documented. He would certainly have killed off the national banks monopoly had he not been killed himself only 41 days after being re-elected. The money changers were pressing for a gold standard because gold was scarce and easier to have a monopoly over. Much of this was already waiting in their hands and each gold merchant was well aware that what they really had could be easily made to seem like much much more. Silver would only widen the field and lower the share so they pressed for...

[Dealey Joe]

THE RETURN OF THE GOLD STANDARD (1866 - 1881)"Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution."W.Cleon Skousen. Even after his death, the idea that America might print its own debt free money set off warning bells throughout the entire European banking community. On April 12th in 1866, the American congress passed the Contraction Act, allowing the treasury to call in and retire some of Lincoln's greenbacks, With only the banks standing to gain from this, it's not hard to work out the source of this action. To give the American public the false impression that they would be better off under the gold standard, the money changers used the control they had to cause economic instability and panic the people. This was fairly easy to do by calling in existing loans and refusing to issue new ones, a tried and proven method of causing depression. They would then spread the word through the media they largely controlled that the lack of a single gold standard was the cause of the hardship which ensued, while all this time using the Contraction Act to lower the amount of money in circulation.It went from $1.8 billion in circulation in 1866 allowing $50.46 per person, to $1.3 billion in 1867 allowing $44.00 per person, to $0.6 billion in 1876 making only $14.60 per person and down to $0.4 billion only ten years later leaving only $6.67 per person and a continually growing population.Most people believe the economists when they tell us that recessions and depressions are part of the natural flow, but in truth the money supply is controlled by a small minority who have always done so and will continue to do so if we let them. By 1872 the American public was beginning to feel the squeeze, so the Bank of England, scheming in the back rooms, sent Ernest Seyd, with lots of money to bribe congress into demonetising silver. Ernest drafted the legislation himself, which came into law with the passing of the Coinage Act, effectively stopping the minting of silver that year. Here's what he said about his trip, obviously pleased with himself. "I went to America in the winter of 1872-73, authorised to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill demonetising silver. It was in the interest of those I represented - the governors of the Bank of England - to have it done. By 1873, gold coins were the only form of coin money."Ernest Seyd Or as explained by Senator Daniel of Virginia "In 1872 silver being demonetized in Germany, England, and Holland, a capital of 100,000 pounds ($500,000.00) was raised, Ernest Seyd was sent to this country with this fund as agent for foreign bond holders to effect the same object (demonetization of silver)". 1Within three years, with 30% of the work force unemployed, the American people began to harken back to the days of silver backed money and the greenbacks. The US Silver Commission was set up to study the problem and responded with telling history: "The disaster of the Dark Ages was caused by decreasing money and falling prices... Without money, civilisation could not have had a beginning, and with a diminishing supply, it must languish and unless relieved, finally perish. At the Christian era the metallic money of the Roman Empire amounted to $1,800,million. By the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to less than $200,million. History records no other such disastrous transition as that from the Roman Empire to the Dark Ages..."United States Silver Commission While they obviously could see the problems being caused by the restricted money supply, this declaration did little to help the problem, and in 1877 riots broke out all over the country. The bank's response was to do nothing except to campaign against the idea that greenbacks should be reissued. The American Bankers Association secretary James Buel expressed the bankers attitude well in a letter to fellow members of the association.He wrote: "It is advisable to do all in your power to sustain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers, especially the Agricultural and Religious Press, as will oppose the greenback issue of paper money and that you will also withhold patronage from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the government issue of money. To repeal the Act creating bank notes, or to restore to circulation the government issue of money will be to provide the people with money and will therefore seriously affect our individual profits as bankers and lenders. See your congressman at once and engage him to support our interest that we may control legislation."James Buel American Bankers Association 2 What this statement exposes is the difference in mentality between your average person and a banker. With a banker 'less really is more' and every need an opportunity to exploit. James Garfield became President in 1881 with a firm grasp of where the problem lay. "Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce... And when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate."James Garfield 1881 Within weeks of releasing this statement President Garfield was assassinated. The cry from the streets was to...

[Dealey Joe]

FREE SILVER (1891 - 1912)Fleecing of the flock is the term the money changers use for the process of booms and depressions which make it possible for them to repossess property at a fraction of its worth. In 1891 a major fleece was being planned. "On Sept 1st, 1894, we will not renew our loans under any consideration. On Sept 1st we will demand our money. We will foreclose and become mortgagees in possession. We can take two-thirds of the farms west of the Mississippi, and thousands of them east of the Mississippi as well, at our own price... Then the farmers will become tenants as in England..."1891 American Bankers Association as printed in the Congressional Record of April 29, 1913 The continued gold standard made this possible. William Jennings Bryan was the Democratic candidate for president in 1896, campaigning to bring silver back as a money standard. (free Silver) "We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labour this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."William Jennings Bryan Of course the money changers supported his opposition on the Republican side so long as he wanted the gold standard maintained. The factory bosses were somehow convinced to tell their work force that business would close down if Bryan was elected, and everyone would lose their jobs. The Republicans won by a small margin. Bryan tried again in 1900 and in 1908 but lost both times. He became secretary of state under Wilson in 1912 but became disenchanted and resigned in 1915 under suspicious circumstances connected with the sinking of the Lusitania which drove America into the First World War.J.P.MORGAN AND THE CRASH OF 1907If you want to work out the cause of the crash of 1907, checking who benefited is where you might like to look first. With the stock market slump causing most of the over extended banks to falter, in steps J.P. Morgan offering to save the day. People will do strange things when in a panic, and this might explain why Morgan was authorised to print $200 million from nothing, which he then used to prop things up. Some of the troubled banks with less than 1% in reserve had no choice. It was accept this solution or go under. Even if they had worked out that their problems had been caused by the same people now offering the solution, there is not a lot they could have done about it. J.P.Morgan was hailed a hero. "All this trouble could be averted if we appointed a committee of six or seven men like J.P.Morgan to handle the affairs of our country."Woodrow Wilson But not everyone was fooled. "Those not favourable to the money trust could be squeezed out of business and the people frightened into demanding changes in the banking and currency laws which the Money Trust would frame."Rep. Charles A. Lindbergh (R-MN) Apart from making a small number rich at the expense of the many, in this case the instability also served the second purpose of encouraging the public to believe that they would be better off living under a Central Bank and a Gold Standard. Desperate people have little time for logic.LINCOLN WATCHESIn Washington the statue of Lincoln sitting in his chair is facing a building called the Federal Reserve Headquarters. This institution would not be there if Lincoln's monetary policy had been adopted by the USA. It is not Federal and it has doubtful reserves. The name is an open deception designed to give this private bank the appearance that it is operating in the public's interest, when in fact it is run solely to gain private profit for its select stock holders. It came into being as the result of one of the slickest moves in financial history. On 23rd December 1913 the house of representatives had past the Federal Reserve Act, but it was still having difficulty getting it out of the senate. Most members of congress had gone home for the holidays, but unfortunately the senate had not adjourned sene die (without day) so they were technically still in session. There were only three members still present. On a unanimous consent voice vote the 1913 Federal Reserve Act was passed. No objection was made, possibly because there was no one there to object. Charles Lindbergh would have objected. "The financial system has been turned over to... the federal reserve board. That board administers the finance system by authority of... a purely profiteering group. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other peoples money."Rep Charles A, Lindbergh (R-MN) Louis T. McFadden would have objected. "We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board... This evil institution has impoverished... the people of the United States... and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through... the corrupt practice of the moneyed vultures who control it."Rep. Louis T, McFadden (R-PA) Barry Goldwater would also have objected. "Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders... The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and... manipulates the credit of the United States."Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) Most Americans would object if they knew. The Federal Reserve is the largest single creditor of the United States Government, and they are also the people who decide how much the average persons car payments are going to be, what their house payments are going to be, and whether they have a job or not. The three people who passed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, knew exactly what they were doing when they set up this private bank, modelled on the Bank of England and the fact that THE BANK OF ENGLAND had been operating independently unopposed since 1694 must have given them a great deal of confidence.WHERE THERE'S WAR THERE'S MONEYWar uses up more materials more quickly than most anything else on earth. In war expensive equipment doesn't wear out slowly, it gets blown up. (It's interesting to note that during the 119 year period from the founding of the Bank of England to Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, England had been at war for 56 years, while the rest of the time preparing for it. In the process the money changers had been getting rich.) So there it was, the newly formed Federal Reserve poised to produce any money the U.S. Government might need from thin air with each dollar standing to make a healthy interest. Nine days after its formation the Federal Reserve founders were wishing each other a Happy New Year. What good fortune might 1914 bring?

[Dealey Joe]

My question is about freeing slaves. I have always hears that only southern slaves were freed?does anyone have information on this?

[Harley Ryder]

Mr. Hall:I am a Civil War buff. Besides studying it from before, during, and after, I have come to one great question in my mind:Did it teach Industries and Groups in America the Art and Business of War Profiteering that still exists till today ?Think about it. Great work, Mr. Hall. You are gifted.

[Bruce Patrick Brychek]

Dear Mr. Joe Hall:Joe - Interesting discussion.Did the Civil War create the foundation and blueprint for The American Military Industrial Complex, or Corporation(s) ?Respectfully,BB.