Six CW Myths from a Cracked Mag writer

[mikeck]

Originally Posted by Savez

Is it because they are inaccurate or just because it is poorly written? What inaccuracies did you see in #4 and #5?

I disagree with these:
The South never, ever had a chance of winning the Civil War. Never.
It all came down to a numbers game, starting with population.

In short, the South never stood a chance against the Union politically, militarily or diplomatically.

and especially this:
The biggest problem was that the military elites from both the North and South were educated in old school battle techniques, but were firing off state of the art weaponry. Which meant they were still lining up and squaring off against each other in battle, but instead of shooting Revolutionary War muskets, they were shooting longer ranged rifles and the very first machine guns.

EDIT: I should clarify, my complaint with the one above is not that it is a false statement..yeah, they did use rifled muskets ith longer range. Its that these weapons had a minimial effect as engagement rangers still occured at 150 yds. In fact, many Confederate units were quite content to continue using smoothbore muskets.

I find them all myths in and of themselves and by definition... innaccurate

[hellboy30]

The main problem I have with it is the tagline: 6 Civil War Myths EVERYONE Believes. No, NOT everyone.

Myth 6 is a bust anyways-anyone who believes the EP freed ALL the slaves has obviously not studied the Civil War & the only time I have actually heard that is from Lost Causers trying to claim they are hearing that-yet I have not seen one shred of evidence pointing to that.

Likewise with Myth #5. I don't know of any serious students of History who believe the North to be non-racist. The New York draft riots were a product of political posturing that caused those folks to do what they did. Needless to say, buttons were pushed & what happened was out of design by certain political figures.

Again, Myth #4 is only for those who really haven't studied the war in depth.

Agreed on Myth #3-they are milking the stats to make a point. Period.

Agreed on Myth 2....the South had chances. They COULD have won the war. They didn't, & it is far easier to find what they did wrong & right than to say what they needed to do to win. That is playing the "What if" game & it truly becomes a nightmare when you REALLY try to sit down & play it. Needless to say, the South was LIKELY to lose, but it was never 100% guaranteed....History has made fools of folks who assumed as much prior to different conflicts.

Myth #1 is silly. You point out the bad generals, so that makes all the good ones mean nothing? I agree that in the grand scheme of things, the U.S. Civil War was NOT a pantheon of amazing generals & innovative tactics. Yet there were some positives & great generals who emerged from it. Given the situations & what they had to work with, they pulled out some amazing victories. Calling it a myth is to trivialize the contributions made by these men.

All in all, I dislike the article more than I like it. There are some good points, but they pigeonhole everyone & you should never do that.

[midaeu]

Very well written Hellboy.

[Castro]

It has to be kept in mind that's a comedy website being discussed in a history forum!
As example, obviously the "everyone" isn't accurate: but do you honestly believe the person who came up with the title (and by the way, in cracked the person that chooses the final title is always a separate person from the one who wrote it) thought nobody else on the planet knew this? Nor did he expect the reader to assume nobody besides the author knew. It's just the same hyperbole and marketing oriented title used in every article they post, and it's a running theme among Cracked fans how the titles are pretty much always incorrect or unrelated to the article (in another the title is "5 Absurdly Fatal Injuries You Won't Believe People Survived" and in the proper article at least two of the cases mentioned have 0 injuries).

The purpose of the thing is for people unfamiliar with Civil War history (99.9% of the world population) to think "oh, so this wasn't quite as simple as I thought", be entertained and go home. Not to have them believe the article is 100% factual, nor make experts out of them or help them write an essay on it. Anyone that visits Cracked can easily figure this out.

Cracked has always been very clear about that: they started out as a comedy magazine following the footseps of Mad.
Both Armchair General and Cracked are on the websites I visit pretty much daily, but I don't expect the WWII section on ACG to have me laughing to myself, and I don't expect Cracked to give me a serious history lesson, thought they bring up interesting things very often - for me to go check somewhere else.

[hellboy30]

Originally Posted by Castro

It has to be kept in mind that's a comedy website being discussed in a history forum!
As example, obviously the "everyone" isn't accurate: but do you honestly believe the person who came up with the title (and by the way, in cracked the person that chooses the final title is always a separate person from the one who wrote it) thought nobody else on the planet knew this? Nor did he expect the reader to assume nobody besides the author knew. It's just the same hyperbole and marketing oriented title used in every article they post, and it's a running theme among Cracked fans how the titles are pretty much always incorrect or unrelated to the article (in another the title is "5 Absurdly Fatal Injuries You Won't Believe People Survived" and in the proper article at least two of the cases mentioned have 0 injuries).

The purpose of the thing is for people unfamiliar with Civil War history (99.9% of the world population) to think "oh, so this wasn't quite as simple as I thought", be entertained and go home. Not to have them believe the article is 100% factual, nor make experts out of them or help them write an essay on it. Anyone that visits Cracked can easily figure this out.

Cracked has always been very clear about that: they started out as a comedy magazine following the footseps of Mad.
Both Armchair General and Cracked are on the websites I visit pretty much daily, but I don't expect the WWII section on ACG to have me laughing to myself, and I don't expect Cracked to give me a serious history lesson, thought they bring up interesting things very often - for me to go check somewhere else.

Very true!

[Savez]

Originally Posted by mikeck

I disagree with these:
The South never, ever had a chance of winning the Civil War. Never.
It all came down to a numbers game, starting with population.

In short, the South never stood a chance against the Union politically, militarily or diplomatically.

and especially this:
The biggest problem was that the military elites from both the North and South were educated in old school battle techniques, but were firing off state of the art weaponry. Which meant they were still lining up and squaring off against each other in battle, but instead of shooting Revolutionary War muskets, they were shooting longer ranged rifles and the very first machine guns.

EDIT: I should clarify, my complaint with the one above is not that it is a false statement..yeah, they did use rifled muskets ith longer range. Its that these weapons had a minimial effect as engagement rangers still occured at 150 yds. In fact, many Confederate units were quite content to continue using smoothbore muskets.

I find them all myths in and of themselves and by definition... innaccurate

I gotcha. I was just wondering what exactly people were considering inaccurate. At first glance you read the article and you're like yeah ok, but like I said it is poorly written; not very scholarly (but of course its not suppose to be). The statement about the machine guns is what got me. haha. Confederate units were not the only regiments that used smoothbores. Many Northern regiments used the .69 caliber smoothbore muskets.

[hellboy30]

Originally Posted by Savez

Confederate units were not the only regiments that used smoothbores. Many Northern regiments used the .69 caliber smoothbore muskets.

True. After the mass surrender at Vicksburg, there were at least 2-3 brigades of Federal soldiers that went from smoothbore muskets to Enfield Rifle muskets....& that was mid 63.

[killemall]

I Too Agree With That Article To A Certain Extent But Im Quite Skeptical About The Authors Credentials

[semperpietas]

Originally Posted by hellboy30

True. After the mass surrender at Vicksburg, there were at least 2-3 brigades of Federal soldiers that went from smoothbore muskets to Enfield Rifle muskets....& that was mid 63.

So did the Irish Brigade at Antietam, but I recall the choose of smooth-bore was deliberate by Meagher who wanted to fight at close range.

[Checkertail20]

This article is from Cracked a joke magazine and supposed to be taken lightly. Next will be discussing the historical inaccuracies from the movie Blazing Saddles.

[hellboy30]

Originally Posted by Checkertail20

This article is from Cracked a joke magazine and supposed to be taken lightly. Next will be discussing the historical inaccuracies from the movie Blazing Saddles.

Or The Onion.

[Nickuru]

I agree with Castro. However, the pen is mightier than the sword. And this includes diplomacy. The Union had it all over the Confederacy in terms of diplomatic relations. Had France not been involved in Mexico they might well have joined the Union side (hypothetical I realize, but nevertheless a real possibility).

This is a (sarcasm alert) article with a degree of truth to it.