North or South...

[dustin]

It was thought to be split but most agree that it was more for the South than for the North. One of the only reasons it didn't succeed to the South was because of D.C.

D.C. as you know, is surrounded by Virginia (stronghold for the rebs) and Maryland. If Maryland succeeded to the South D.C. would be nothing, or so Lincoln and his generals thought. It is because of this that a few forts were built namely at the Point Lookout site. The North intercepted a letter from the South which explained an elaborate attack against D.C. The rebs would come across the Potomac from Virginia and land near Point Lookout and march straight for D.C. collecting local southern Maryland sympathsizers along the way. In fact, there were numberous sympathsizers or people who were thought to be sympathsizers thrown in the prison complex, once it was built.

After word got out that the rebs might make a quick dash for D.C. the North built three forts at Point Lookout, Fort Lincoln being the one closest to the Potomac has been reconstructed for your viewing pleasure today. Fearing the worst, Lincoln and his generals decided to open a prison complex (PLO), in fact the largest prison complex the North would have, Andersonville being the largest the South had. Conditions were just as bad as Andersonville. More often than not, wounded or black regiments were sent to take watch over the rebs. I believe 52,000 prisoners passed through its gates in it's time and anywhere from 2-14 thousand (depending on who you speak to) are reported as parishing.

Need anymore info I've got tons of books, sites, and people you can reach.

Thanks BL!



I thought I read something about that...also mentioned something about how most Maryland population was pro-slavery...

 

[dustin]

I would have been an abolitionist.
Even though history says otherwise that the issue was merely a side effect of the war, slavery was the biggest moral issue of the war.

And that would have put me firmly in the Yankee camp, for that reason alone.

I think John Brown, although a bit on the extreme side, has never been given the credit he deserves...

 

[vraiblonde]

I think John Brown, although a bit on the extreme side, has never been given the credit he deserves...

DUSTIN! John Brown was a lunatic who murdered innocent people. He went to Kansas and slaughtered whole familes where there wasn't a single slave to be found.

This is the sort of thing that annoys me about the east coast - vicious murderers like John Brown get sanitized and glorified as some abolitionist hero. When you get into Kansas and lower Nebraska, the story gets told a little differently - how John Brown and his followers took over the town of Lawrence, KS and drug men out of their beds and killed them right in front of their wives and children.

The only pro-slavery people in Kansas were the border ruffians that came over from Missouri to sway elections. When Kansas was became a state, it was a free state.

 

[Nickel]

:liesmyteachertoldme:

 

[johnson0424]

south

southerners are the best.