Confederate layouts?

As I do mine. The evidence supports my position.

Nits? You made a statement that was incorrect, and I corrected you. If that's nitpicking, so be it.

LOL! You reckon? US railroads of the period were plagued by boiler explosions and failures that were a direct result of poorly-understood or non-existent materials science. Or can you cite the contemporary W&A boiler code to prove otherwise? Perhaps a cite from Wikipedia might help?

Joe, if you're going to start pontificating about locomotive boilers, you need to know a *lot* more than you currently do.

That "dubious reference" included his first "color photo" which is why I included it... and if you have a problem with the Wiki article, cite it, don't just dismiss it out of hand. I can see why you'd want to, because it proves you wrong... again. Of course, you totally ignored the OTHER cites I gave... which I have to assume you didn't think you could get away with dismissing with mere handwaving.

... and when was it, exactly, that the Great Locomotive Chase took place? Oh yes, that's right... April 12, **1862**.

Well, they're not "color photographs" at all. They're three black and white slides taken through color filters, then projected in register through filters from three projectors. Yes, it results in a perceived image that's sort of "in color", but the form is not fixed in a single image, and calling it "in color" is generous at best.

Yeah sure... is that the evidence that shows color photos were available BEFORE the Great Locomotive Chase? Oh, that's right... THERE ISN'T ANY!

No, you're simply making a fool of yourself... again. Begone, troll. Now I remember why I had you killfiled.

Nice try... you're still ignoring the FACT that General was in a collision with a munitions train. Boiler damage can't be blamed on internals in this case, but leave it to you to ignore the obvious and keep on trying.

Seen any trees lately, or does that forest keep getting in the way?

That's funny... ignorance doesn't seem to stop YOU from "pontificating about" nearly everything. I don't need steam engineering certification to know you're a troll. Begone.

I'll second that motion. Thanks, Mike.

I doubt you have a rebel rag decal in the back of your pickup truck window.

Most folks recognize that there were not only lots of non-slaveholders in the ante bellum south, there were even some union sympathizers. The fact that a lot of the non-slaveholders supported the slaveholding elite points to the gullibility as much as the culpability of poor and middle class whites. But those who allowed (and allow, still) themselves to be hooked by the opportunity to look down on another race are worse than just plain fools.

It's like the Rove regime's pandering to the hot button issues of the ayatollhoid religious right, spewing rants against the ungodliness of abortion or gay marriage, while Rove's _real_ clients are buggering the national economy. The sheep are entertained by the Rove Reach-Around and ignore who's sticking it up their backside. If you've been around young men of military age you can't have missed the undercurrent of racism and religious intolerance in the language some of them use about middle-easterners of any stripe. I imagine lots of poor white kids in southern regiments consumed similar attitudes regarding black slaves, attitudes served up to them on a plate by those who sent them into battle.

When were you in country?

I was first crewman in an SH-3 (call sign Indian Gal 69) that got hit by small arms fire and lost an engine 25 miles inside North Vietnam 40 years ago October 16th. Crossing the coast on one engine we stumbled over a concentration of anti-aircraft around a small coastal city and its rail and highway bridges, and ended up taking fragments from 85mm shells and three direct hits from 37mm - one of which blew up inside the aircraft four feet from me. While I was knocked out we got our feet wet and made it 15 miles out to sea, and despite a lack of tail rotor pitch control ditched successfully alongside a frigate and destroyer. The four of us in the crew (LCDR David Murphy, ENS Ed Marsyla, AD-1(AC) Vincent Vicari, and myself, an AX-2(AC) - a rating since replaced by "AW") along with six members of the White Rabit team we had inserted, and were in the process of hoisting out when the locals came over the ridge above us, were quickly picked up although the helo capsized and eventually sank. Most of us on board had frag wounds of varying degrees, although thankfully none of us had as many holes as our 6 man raft did when we inflated it - sort of.

We were part of Search and Rescue Detachment Charlie from HELASRON 6 (HS-6), flying off the USS Intrepid, on detachment from our parent carrier carrier the USS Kearsarge. We had been making flights into the same area (I think it was around the Ho Chih Minh trail - it was in that very narrow part of NVN) since October 12th, first looking for a downed pilot, then doing recon for an LZ for the team insertion.

At the time I was an Indiana Republican boy who had recently voted for Barry Goldwater.

I made subsequent WESTPAC cruises in '68 and '69 with HS-8 and HS-2.

I've never created a "Confederate" layout, although I did, at one time, develop a "Southern" layout.

All I had to do was change my B&M engines and rolling stock to the "Bugtussle and Mobile," and rename my crew members - the engineer became "Bubba," the fireman was named "Cooter," and the conductor was renamed "Beauregard."

The hardest part of the new layout was finding those little tiny rebel flags for the red Pontiac GTO that kept tearing across the tracks immediately ahead of the oncoming engine.

The other major problem was in operation. There seems to be a natural tendancy to increase the speed of the locomotives as the tempo of "Dueling Banjos" gets faster and faster - to the point where they were doing a scale 167 mph.

Andy

It was a slave supported society that fought a war to keep their slaves so this is a valid extrapolation.

guarded by drooling illiterates, No comment. They were not then and are not now all that way,

Valid point. Neither the average person or the the slaves would have ever got near the "Good" cars.

A valid point. With very few exceptions southern railroads ran from one town to another and ended at the edge of town. There were very few direct interchanges. Having to transfer goods from one railroad to another across town by wagon was very common.

A coordinated connected railway system that allowed the Union to move an army from one theater of war to another in a matter of days was one big Union advantage. That they had no generals who could or would fight was the reason the war lasted so long.

So sorry to say although the statement was over the top, as it is a valid extension of the way things were, it is a valid portrait of what might have been if the south had won the war.

It does ignore the question of whether an already decaying society could have survived in a world that was rapidly moving away from slavery.

Bill

Thus the "dragging" and "drooling" - excessively hierarchical societies have about the same effect as inbreeding, and sooner or later a lot of the steam engines would be rapidly turning into leaking rusting junk, just like the society and its leadership.

We now have our national wealth increasingly concentrated in the upper [measured by wealth] few percentiles of our population. Maybe we deserve Karl Rove.

The South seceded to keep their slaves - this was morally wrong. The North started the war for economic reasons - this was legally wrong.

Even Abe Lincoln, as a lawyer, believed that a state which had freely joined the union had a right to leave, as did most of the judicial.

No, I'm not a supporter of a slaveholding south, just a history buff.

BTW, I know the South fired the first shots at Fort Sumter. This was after the North refused to remove their troops from South Carolina territory.

Which reminds me, the Civil War was responsible for changing "these united States" to "this United States".

None of which is pertinent to model railroading, so I'll drop it at this point.

A real nut, alright. You got the rest of those books from the Lincoln Library about how the Jews of Europe just went on vacation and disappeared?

(That's the George Lincoln Rockwell library, naz.. - er, uh, 'natch)

Keep on droolin' on your sheet, Bubba, and by the way: spelling counts.

Steve, you're pretty good at slinging insults but I haven't seen you produce any historic info. Perhaps you have none. I suggest you read a book called "The Causes of the Civil War", I don't recall the author.

Larry Blanchard wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:

A good honest history of the US Civil War and the causes for it is James M McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom" (named for a song used by both sides during the civil war).

Comrade Spelling Challenged ("E.T Atkins") is maybe 20-25% correct in his list of "5 facts".

Take an example: Comrade Atkins says "This [Emancipation proclamation] did nothing to free the slaves up north". Correct - the specific proclamation only freed slaves (without compensation to the owners) in states that on 1 jan 1863 (not july 1863) were in rebellion against the union. In other words - the proclamation did not apply to slave states that had stayed within the union.

What applied to states that had stayed within the union was that the US congress on April 10th 1862 had promised compensation to any owner who voluntarily freed his slaves, on April 16th 1862 had banned slavery in the District of Columbia, and on June 19th 1862 had banned slavery in areas not yet organized into states (ie the territories).

Of course, most of the states which stayed within the union had a ban on slavery _before_ the start of the civil war. So the slaves not freed by the proclamation was slaves in some of of the border states that stayed in the union (Maryland, Missouri, Delawere and Kentucky, plus union-occupied parts of New Orleans and Virginia, and the part of NW Virginia which was about to become West Virginia).

Slaves in Maryland, Missouri and West Virginia were emancipated by separate state actions. The last slaves freed were in the border states of Kentucky and Delawere - on the ratification (on December 6th 1865) of the 13th Amendment to the US constitution, which banned slavery in all states and territories.

So Atkins is correct in saying that the Emancipation Proclamation only applied to slaves in the rebel states, but incorrect in his inference that it was all done by a bunch of cynical damnyankees who freed slaves in the south but didn't care one whit about slavery within the union.

He is also confused about dates and battles. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued after the union turned back an invasion of Maryland during the bitterly fought battle of Antietam in 1862, it was not part of the famous speech Lincoln gave at Gettysburg in 1863.

He is _partially_ correct in saying that the war was not about slavery. Or rather - was not _exclusively_ about slavery.

For some people, especially in the south, it was about states right. As for whether states had the right to seceede from the union - could very well be. For all practical purposes, it matters little. The civil war was fought, and it gave the results it gave.

As for whether slaves were treated so well in the south and the former slaves staying with their former owners after the war "because they know what side their bread was buttered on" - I am not sure - is there a polite way of saying "utter bullshit" ?

Enough ? Maybe time to talk about model trains again ?

Grin, Stein

I certainly hope so. Roger Aultman

Ste>

Enough ? Maybe time to talk about model trains again ?

Tell me, oh, tell me........pulllleeeeeeezzzzze!

Where in the Constitution does it say that a state has the right to secede from the union?

No dancing.

I want the exact article and section.

Give it a whack.

Buck

Nowhere, obviously, or you wouldn't have asked the question :-).

But you might want to know that the Articles of Confederation spoke of "perpetual union." When the Constitution was being written, several of the delegates insisted that "perpetual" be removed in case their states wanted out at a later date. So the constitution does say so, albeit by omission.

Also note that most legal authorities at the time held the opinion that secession was a legal option for a state. Unless a book I read was lying, even Lincoln defended that position in a trial before the war.

My response is not intended to provoke a long thread of tirades, just to point out the relevant history. So this is the end of my participation in this thread.