Emancipation & abolition

One hundred fifty years ago today President Abraham Lincoln issued the executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation. It took effect as of 1 January, 1863.

Many people with only a cursory understanding of US history think that this was the mechanism by which “Lincoln freed the slaves.” However, it declared the freedom of slaves only in the states then in rebellion against the Federal government. That meant that some 900,000 slaves in the so-called “free states” were still legally held as chattel goods.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution took effect in December 1865. That’s when slavery was finally abolished in the United States. That was 22 years after Great Britain ended the practice, 13 years after France ended it (for the second time) and 142 years after Tsar Peter I ended it in Russia. (In 1861 Tsar Alexander II finally ended the practice of serfdom, slavery’s heir.)

I'm not convinced we've truly abolished slavery even now; it's just in a different form. But still...

Soul strategy

Okay, I’m not getting the Kia TV advertising campaign. What’s up with rodents breakdancing?

What’s the connection between rodents and Kias?

Are the rodents guinea pigs? Hamsters? Really pudgy rats with their tails tucked into their baggy trousers?

What am I missing?

Global merriment

With all the turmoil going on for the past week or so—Muslims rioting about a whackjob video with nonexistent production values, Chinese rioting about the Japanese buying some islands, the Twitterati going ballistic about #MuslimRage and #RomneyEncore…

Am I the only person humming this oldie?

Really alarming how so many of the problem spots sung about 50 years ago are still trouble spots today.

Arrgh!

At this point in the year, and in the election cycle, we could all use some time out. And, given that both business and politics drown us in obfuscation and verbal obliteration, perhaps it’s a really good thing that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

The folks who thought it up ten years ago have helpful hints on pirate-speak pick-up lines, since apparently a whole lot of TLAPD revolves around places of booze.

If you otherwise need help translating, there are one or two sites that will oblige. The UX is what you’d expect from people too busy with downing grog and shivering timbers to bother with features and functionality.

BTW—you need to distinguish the type of pirates we’re talking about here from the ones on Wall Street and in Congress. Just be sayin’, matey.

Clarifying the campaign

As a personal note to the battle at Sharpsburg, I’ll tell you about the class at William and Mary where Professor Ludwell H. Johnson III was describing Lee’s 1862 invasion of Maryland. He mentioned that one of Lee’s strategic intents was to supply his army, since the farms of Northern Virginia had been pretty well destroyed by the various maneuverings between Union and Confederate armies earlier in the year.

Yet he characterized the Army of Northern Virginia’s campaign as being without any looting or stealing. All the undergrads were madly taking notes, not finding discrepancies in this account. Finally one of the two grad students taking the class raised her hand and asked, “Uh, Dr. Johnson, you say that there was no thievery on this campaign, and yet one of Lee’s purposes was to provide food and supplies for his army?”

Professor Johnson fixed his gimlet eye upon the inquirer and replied, “Well, occasionally a high-spirited soldier might steal a watermelon…but Lee’s agents issued (Confederate) scrip for all the supplies they procured.”

Oh, yeah. Right.

The undergrads didn’t really grasp the subtleties of my question and its answer. And fortunately, Professor Johnson is an honorable man and he didn’t hold it against me when time came to grade my thesis.

I just wanted to make sure I understood the situation.

Sharpsburg in September

When last we left the Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee was leading it away from the victory at Manassas and taking the war into Union territory for the first time. (He did this for both strategic military and logistical reasons: he was literally looking for food supplies for his men.) It was a bold move and one of the few times the north actually felt the direct burden of fighting.

Try to imagine the feelings in Washington: enemy forces showing all signs of encircling the city, cutting off its lines of communications with the rest of the Union. The fear was palpable, and the Radical Republicans…well, the phrase “wound up tighter than a cheap watch” comes to mind.

Following Manassas, President Lincoln felt the only general able to counter Lee was McClellan (which speaks more about the lousy quality of the available commander pool than it does about McClellan’s capabilities), so the expert at procrastination was hauled up from the Peninsula and installed at the head of the Army of the Potomac again.

McClellan was handed an extraordinary gift in the form of the discovery on 13 September of Lee’s strategic plan (found wrapped around three cigars). By speedily deploying his troops (which outnumbered the Confederates 75,000 to 55,000) while Lee’s army was widely dispersed, he might have turned the tables. But, being McClellan, he waited 18 hours to take action.

The two forces finally met 150 years today on farmers’ fields near the Maryland town of Sharpsburg. Through rows of man-high ripened corn, across Antietam Creek and along a sunken road that became known as Bloody Lane, they slogged it out through most of the day.

It was the bloodiest battle in US history; 23,000 casualties from both sides. More than 2100 Federals and 1500 rebels died.

Lee went all-in, McClellan never committed more than 75% of his force, and they fought to a standstill. The next day, Lee at first waited for McClellan to attack, but “the young Napoleon”…just sat there. The Army of Northern Virginia withdrew without being pursued.

After a month of McClellan’s inactivity, Lincoln finally removed him from command permanently. He also took advantage of the tactical win to issue the Emancipation Proclamation the following week.

Sharpsburg was a geopolitical turning point; European powers (in particular, Britain & France) decided there was no advantage in backing the Confederacy by diplomatic recognition, so it was essentially on its own. And; it never had either the agricultural or industrial resources to stand alone against the United States.

But the war would slog on for another two and a half years.