Southern Devotion to a System Term Paper

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Both countries reallocated their favor toward the Union, which contributed to confederate dissolution.

The battle of Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation will forever be entwined because without the battle, emancipation might have looked very different. It was a case of perfect timing and making the most out of a bad situation and Lincoln should be commended for his ability to think about things clearly enough to see how these events could be played off of one another and used to his advantage.

5. Discuss and support your views on Lee's goals and decision to invade the North in 1863 and whether it was a wise strategic decision. According to Michael Palmer, author of Lee Moves North," Lee's decision to invade the north was a poorly calculated choice. Lee's major mistake was keeping the government in the dark about his strategy. Palmer states, "Lee's determination to mold Confederate strategy into a form more to his liking led him to keep his true intensions from President Davis and the cabinet" (Palmer 128). According to Palmer, he initiated offensives "without anything approaching a formal plan" (129). Because Lee did keep his plans secret and he also "denied to himself the additional support that he required to enable his plan to work" (129). Lee undertook the Bristoe Station campaign with "minimal preparation" (130). He did not have an army that was equipped nor did he have enough supplies for the march.

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Palmer contends that Lee should not have been surprised when things did not go the way he had anticipated. Brian Reid, author of Robert E. Lee: Icon for a Nation, agrees with this notion, adding that Lee's successes contributed to his downfall. Where there is no question that Lee was a model leader, his confidence "spilled into over-confidence. His faith in himself and his troops persuaded him to underestimate the Union capacity to recover" (Reid 250). Reid asserts that Lee's "dispositions became casual, his direction of the staff poor; the clarity of orders issued by his headquarters left much to be desired and confused commanders on the spot" (250). Lee's move north was not a wise decision because he made mistakes that could have been avoided if he had planned a little more strategically. Palmer put is best when he stated, "Lee's strategic vision may well have been superior to that of President Jefferson Davis. Lee's strategy of invasion, and battle, may have offered the Confederacy its best hope of survival. But what Lee failed to understand was that a commander of an army can no more effectively shape a national strategy on the sly, and on the cheap, than a tail can wag a dog" (Palmer 136). In short, no man is an island.

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