re: University of Alabama system to review all building names, remove Confederate Army plaques

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Johnson may have been loyal to the Union and opposed to slavery, but he was a virulent racist. He spent his entire presidency blocking Republican legislation to grant basic civil rights to freedmen. He dedicated his political career to fighting black citizenship, voting rights, property ownership rights and helping southern states reestablish the same social, political, and legal structure as it had prior to the civil war, except for slavery. Even his own cabinet hated him.

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All of this.

The death of Lincoln and Johnson assuming the presidency played a massive role in the failures of postwar reconstruction.

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No.

That is the same as saying Japan would have won the Pacific war if the US carriers had been at Pearl. Only thing that happens in both cases is the war goes on longer. The Union’s manpower and industrial capacity simply couldn’t be matched. Those plus the naval blockade were insurmountable by the middle of 1863.

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You are totally discounting the fact that by summer of 1863 war weariness was pervasive in Union states. To that point the best the Army of The Potomac had been able to do against the Army of Northern Virginia in a pitched battle was fight them to a draw (Antietam), which is why Lee made the, in retrospect, foolish decision to force them into a battle on their own soil. The Confederates knew that Lincoln was politically vulnerable and the Northern populace had grown sick of the war. They also knew that they could never win a war of attrition against an enemy with significant advantages in finances, armaments, and manpower. The belief was that a decisive victory in a Northern state would force Lincoln to initiate peace talks, and it likely would have. What happened instead was the Union got its second wind and the Confederates were faced with the reality that the war would not be ending anytime soon. Even then it was two more years before the end. Without a victory at Gettysburg it would have been highly unlikely that the Northern states would have continued to support a war that they were making no easily discernable progress towards winning.

Only in the south could we celebrate treason, slavery and losing this much.

Again, your thoughts on the matter completely disregard the actual reality of summer 1863. The first national conscription was passed into law early that year and the first ever national draft occurred in July of 1863. The New York Draft Riots occurred in July of 1863. The draft was extremely unpopular among the large immigrant population of the North. Conscription into a losing war would have been even more unpopular.

Whether or not a Confederate victory at Gettysburg would have resulted in Lee proceeding to loot, plunder, and burn rural Pennsylvania for the next 3 months is kind of irrelevant. The tactical victory wouldn't have been the real benefit. The Confederates were after a strategic, psychological victory. They wanted to take the war to the North to break their population's spirit and advance the perception that the Confederacy was a viable country rather than a highly organized rebellion.

If the war had continued to go poorly for the Union in the East, the odds of McClellan becoming President in 1864 increase dramatically. McClellan personally wanted to continue fighting, but the Democratic party did not. The election amounted to a war referendum. A Democrat win in 1864 likely ends the war, even if Lincoln isn't motivated to end the fighting himself before then. The notion that Gettysburg wasn't the turning point of the war is honestly kind of a bizarre take. It was the primary strategic battle of the entire Civil War.

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The notion that Gettysburg wasn't the turning point of the war is honestly kind of a bizarre take. It was the primary strategic battle of the entire Civil War.

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I view it as like the Stalingrad of the Civil War. The South was on the retreat from that point forward. It was a political battle as well designed to break northern moral. lee also could have encircled Washington DC.

You could make the argument that Shiloh was just as important. Shiloh occurred the year before and the South lost control of the Western Theater and the Mississippi. The North captured New Orleans early on and The Siege of Vicksburg occurred around the same time as Gettysburg so the South had lost their biggest port and control of the Mississippi. The losses at Gettysburg in the east and Vicksburg in the west spelled the end.

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You could make the argument that Shiloh was just as important.

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Shiloh marked the demise of the Confederacy's already highly unlikely ability to achieve a military victory. Gettysburg marked the demise of the Confederacy's ability to achieve a political victory. After they lost control of West/ Central Tennessee, and with it the ability to restrict Union access to the Deep South, the odds of fighting off a Union "invasion" was totally impossible. Their sole option from that point was to win a political victory by dragging the war out as long as possible in order to pressure the Union government into peace talks. The Confederates were actually "winning" in the Eastern theater of the war prior to Gettysburg, but due to the discrepancy in numbers and resources were unable to pursue and strategically defeat the Army of The Potomac. A Confederate victory at Gettysburg would have been politically and strategically devastating to the Union, serving as the exclamation point to the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville earlier in the spring and putting the Army of Northern Virginia in a position to march directly on Washington with a victory on Union soil under its belt.

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view it as like the Stalingrad of the Civil War.

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A very apt comparison.

Neither Germany nor the Confederates could win unless they forced the opposition to decide it was not worth fighting and quit/sue for peace. Neither had any shot to win their wars on the basis of fighting alone (even if the Germans captured the Balkan oil fields). Stalingrad and Gettsyburg were the swing battles where both had a chance to do just that.

I'm more than good with Donte Hall, but DJ Hall's going to smell like smoke and everything's only going to work like it should every few minutes.

I’d say it’s pretty clear that July 3, 1863 was the turning point. Gettysburg was a clear Union victory. And Vicksburg fell as well.

Texas athletes push for changes to campus, school song to be more racially inclusive (espn)

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University of Texas athletes have released a statement saying they will no longer participate in recruitment activities until a set of demands are met, including re-naming buildings, dropping the school song “The Eyes of Texas” and educating everyone on the UT’s racist history.

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