The Rebellion: Its Authors and Causes-- Part 3: Who Had Stakes in a War?

**  What was the British stake in the Civil War?

Get back for the War of 1812

Need for Southern cotton

British banks had investments in both the North and South

**  Who wanted there to be a war?

Radical Republicans

Britain

Irish

Southern Conservatives

**  The French wanted war

They had an interest in taking over Mexico and with a war in the United States this would take away a major problem for them.

--Old Secesh

Find-A-Grave: Edward S. Bragg-- Part 2

 After the war, President Andrew Johnson  appointed him postmaster of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, in 1866 and he was a member of the State Senate in 1868 and 1869.  In 1885, he was elected  as a Democrat to the Forty-ninth Congress , serving until1887.

He was also the Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico in 1888, consul general  at Havana, Cuba, in  1903 and consul general to Hong Kong, China, 1903-1906.

--Old Secesh

Edward S. Bragg-- Part 1: Of Wisconsin

From Wikipedia.

I'd never heard of this man until I saw that a Wisconsin senator had suggested that Fort Bragg in North Carolina, named after Confederate general Braxton Bragg had a cousin with the same last name who fought for the Union during the war.  He suggests saving money on the name change and just naming after Edward Bragg.

EDWARD STUYVESANT BRAGG

(February 20, 1827 to June 20, 1912)

American politician, lawyer, soldier, diplomat.  He was an accomplished  Union Army officer during the Civil War and served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Wisconsin.  He was later U.S. Minister to Mexico during the Presidency of Grover Cleveland and consul-general to the Republic of China and British Hong Kong under President Theodore Roosevelt.

He was born in New York and went to Wisconsin in 1850 where he settled in Fond du Lac and was a lawyer.

--Old Secesh

Last Time 'Insurgents' Got This Close to Capitol-- Part 5: 'Scared Abe Lincoln Like Hell'

Early ordered his troops to stay in place and continue to look menacing and after darkness fell on July 12, sometime  after 10 p.m., he ordered a withdrawal into Virginia.  And, thus, no Confederate flag made it to within six miles of the U.S. Capitol, that is until January 6, 2021, when one not only got within six miles but was also carried into the Capitol by the infamous "Confederate Flag Guy."

"Although he failed to capture the National Capital, the campaign apparently pleased him," as recounted by Major Henry Kyd Douglas," said the National Park Service , which maintains the partially restored Fort Stevens in the Brightwood  neighborhood of northwest Washington.

"On the evening of July 12, after deciding to withdraw from Washington, General Early called his staff together and declared: 'Major, we haven't taken Washington, but we scared Abe Lincoln like hell.' "

Early was later relieved from command in March 1865, and following the war, fled to Mexico, then Cuba, then Canada, before returning -- promise of amnesty in hand -- to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he resumed his prewar occupation as an attorney and helped  in "crafting the narrative of the Lost Cause," the National Park Service said.

--Old Secesh

Stephen A. Douglas After the 1860 Election

From Wikipedia.

After the election defeat, Douglas returned to the U.S. Senate, where he sought to prevent the break-up of the United States.  He joined a special committee of 13 senators led by John J. Crittenden which sought a legislative solution  to the increasing sectional divide between the North and the South.

He supported the Crittenden  Compromise, which called for a series of Constitutional amendments that would make the Missouri Compromise a part of that document, but this was defeated in committee.

As late as Christmas 1860, he wrote  Alexander H. Stephens and offered support to the idea of making Mexico as a slave territory to prevent secession.

But, South Carolina voted to secede on December 20, 1860, and by mid-January 1861 another five Southern states had done likewise.  In February, Jefferson Davis took the office of President of the Confederate States of America.

--Old Secesh

Dr. Ezra Read-- Part 3: The Texas Revolution

When the Texas Revolution started in 1836, he quit his Cincinnati medical practice and  volunteered his services to an Ohio  military company heading for Texas.

At the Battle of San Jacinto, he treated Mexican leader and general  Antonio  Lopez de Santa Anna.  In 1837, he was attending physician at an infamous duel  between Gen. Felix Huston, for whom he was staff surgeon, and  future Confederate general Albert Sidney Johnson.

Ezra Read was named "acting surgeon-in-chief" of the Texas army and navy, and afterwards commissioned Surgeon General of the Texas Navy, the only person to ever serve in that capacity.

--Old Secesh

The Red River Campaign's Objectives

From Wikipedia.

1.  Destroy Richard Taylor's Confederate Army.

2.  Capture Shreveport, Louisiana, Confederate headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department.

3.  Control of the Red River.

4.  The occupation of East Texas.

5.  Confiscate as many as 100,000 bales of cotton from plantations and warehouses along the Red River.

6.  Organize a pro-Union government in the region.

There are some historians who also believe the presence of 25,000 French troops in Mexico and Emperor Maximillian also had something to do with it.

--Old Secesh

Lincoln and Seward-- Part 6: Dealing With France and Mexico and Accomplishments After Lincoln's Death.

From the  McHenry County Civil War Round Table.

The British, for their part, would stop construction of any "suspicious ship."  It slowed up construction on the ram "Stonewall" to the point that it arrived into Confederate service too late.  The other Laird ram was sold to Egypt.

Then there was the diplomatic problem of the French, with Emperor Maximillian in Mexico.  This was clearly a flouting of the Monroe Doctrine figuring the United States would be too busy with the Civil War to do much about it.

Lincoln and Seward determined that it would fall apart of its own accord and determined to just sit it out and not send troops or put pressure on it.

Their efforts in foreign policy paid off.  No foreign country intervened or ever recognized the Confederacy.

William Seward continued to serve the country after Lincoln's death.  He bought Alaska from the Russians, negotiated a treaty with Nicaragua to build the canal connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.  He also established an Open Door policy with China and worked on making Midway Island and Hawaii U.S. territories in the Pacific.

Our speaker had mentioned that Seward was wealthy and even had three slaves before he went to Washington.  I asked what became of the slaves and found out that after New York freed slaves they became house servants.

--Old Secesh