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Blake
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 12:12 am 
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EPISODE 2.16 -
January 13, 2006

How Slavery Ended
Guest: Michael Vorenberg

Dr. Michael Vorenberg, author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, The Abolition of Slavery and the Thirteenth Amendment, analyzes the politics of the 13th Amendment.

Blake's Review:
This is an enlightening interview as I have often just naturally assumed the 13th Amendement was a natural step to take after the Emancipation Proclamation. I never really thought too much about it.

But Lincoln, and others, were worried about the return of slavery in America. "That's why at various moments after the proclamation was issued, he said that the proclamation lacked certain constitutionality, that it could be overturned by Congress after the war or it could be rescinded by a president, if some president were elected in 1864 who was not Lincoln."

So where does the amendment come from? Vorenberg starts by talking about how rare amendments were to the constitution by the 1860s and how seldom they were even proposed. In the 19th Century Americans did not see the Constitution as being something which would take on reform ideas, "you don't get proposals for temperance or for the abolition of polygamy... so people didn't immediately got to the amendment as a solution" but would instead rely on the state courts and statutes. "Today, the answer to a Supreme Court decision that is disliked is either to obviously replace personnel on the court or more immediately to propose a constitutional amendment. And that was simply not the custom back then."

Interestingly, in 1861 an amendment was proposed to protect slavery where it already existed as an attempt to stop the coming Civil War. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his first inaugural and a few states ratify it but it is not eventually adopted as the southern states depart the Union and the war is already inevitable. Ironically, had it passed it would have been the 13th Amendment.

Who ends up supporting the 13th Amendment to end slavery? Obviously, the abolitionists, who believe the proclamation does not go far enough to end slavery. But also, surprisingly, the conservative pro-war Democrats. Why? They didn't think Lincoln had the power to end slavery in the way he did, it was unconstitutional they felt. They seek a constitutional measure to end it instead. "What would look strange to us, is that to many of these people, that proposal is a form of criticising Lincoln. It is not complimentary to Lincoln. It is a way of saying that Lincoln's solution in unconstitutional, our solution is constitutional."

The interview goes on and discusses how the amendment passes and the story behind it in greater detail. I don't want to give away all the suprises.

It is an interesting interview and one with a lot of deep procedural and political thinking to indulge in. I got into it (more than I thought I would) and enjoyed it. I have added this guests book to my Civil War reading list.

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Quaama
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 1:54 pm 
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Blake wrote:
The 6th Corps was in reserve just a mile or two to the rear behind the Round Tops. Had Meade needed them they could have arrived in short order to either counterattack Pickett's remnants (with all three generals down, and all the colonels, they could not have put up much of a fight) or take up a new position on Power's Hill between Culp's and the Round Tops. Then Meade could have either chosen to continue the battle at Gettysburg on July 4 or fallen back to Pipe Creek.

Even if Meade is "routed" from the field (which is laughable because I don't see 70,000 Union troops fleeing the field just because a few hundred Virginians cross a barrier on Cemetery Hill*) then Meade reforms his army behind his cavalry (assuming they are not routed also) and use them as a screen to fall back over Pipe Creek.

* If Hooker's army was not routed by a far more devastating attack at Chancellorsville (which was actually successful) than the notion that Meade's entire army would rout from a far weaker attack does not make much sense.

We can do this all day :mrgreen:

But, alas, we must move on to other episodes to review....


I think time of day (i.e. nighttime) saved the Union at Chancellorsville.

Long story short as I said at the outset, Gettysburg is important. Things would have been very different if the CSA had won there. Still, as I also said before, 'twas not to be.

"But, alas, we must move on to other episodes to review."

I'll stay out of the next one. That's an American political problem and fraught with danger.
All I'll say is that I'm glad our Constitution was written after yours (and within living memory of the American Civil War) so care was taken to include 'indissoluble' in the phrase "[the States] have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth". There has been great hesitancy to make any amendments to it, only 8 of 45 proposals were successful. They tried again just a couple of years ago, proposed amendment failed. Many politicians seem to be slow learners.

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Blake
PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2025 10:49 pm 
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EPISODE 2.17 -
January 20, 2006

Sex and the Civil War
Guest: Thomas Lowry, M.D.

Unlike the soldiers themselves, author Thomas Lowry, MD, is happy to discuss The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War.

Blake's Review:
You know... to write a book like this... you have to be both a doctor and a writer, but you also need a sense of humor, and this guy Lowry hits the trifecta. A great interview which has serious and sad moments, sprinkled with some amusing stories and colorful language.

Needless to say, Civil War soldiers were men the same as we are in 2025. You put a bunch of guys together and someone will, inevitably, break out a dirty magazine. Civil War soldiers were no different. In fact, pornographic catalogs were, not surprising, very popular and were peddled to the soldiers by... let's call them enterpreneurs. These dirty pictures would circulate and soon quite an industry was developed around them. What happened to these picturebooks? Lowry estimates that about 99% of them were destroyed either when the war ended or were destroyed by relatives when they were discovered after the soldiers passed (maybe in a black box under the bed or in the closet?). It is easy to understand why someone would protect the legacy of their grandfathers by destroying any dirty pictures or letters which they discovered. But it does make it hard for historians to go back and gauge just how prevalent these things were in the war.

Lowry takes another approach by reviewing the things which can't be destroyed by the families - court martial records. I won't go into too much detail... use your imagination. But the Civil War had its fair share of court martials for improper behavior and actions. These records offer some vivid insights into the private lives of soldiers (or those who were caught and court martialed).

Lowry also discusses the rampant amount of STD's which were going around the army camps as a result of the soldiers frequenting whore houses in places like Nashville. The numbers were staggering and accounted for a massive number or men absent from the ranks at any one time.

What to do? The following story could well become a Hollywood movie and nearly was one starring Raquel Welsh back in the 60s. Unfortunately, it was not made.

The Union officials opted to take all the most diseased hookers in Nashville and send them north by steamboat. Where are they going? Nobody knows. Just not Nashville. So all these women are put on a ship and sent away. Well, word spreads. Soldiers begin swimming out to the boat hoping for some fun but are beaten back by the sailors on the boat who are under orders to keep the soldiers away from the women (good luck). The steamboat makes it to Kentucky but at every port the local officials refuse to let the women off the boat (not too many towns will take in diseased prostitutes afterall). After an extended voyage the ship's captain decides it is no longer worth it and turns around. The boat heads back to Nashville where the women are returned to their original places of business. The name of the boat? The "Idahoe". You can't make that up :mrgreen:

https://jmarkpowell.com/111-prostitutes-the-original-love-boat/

The interview sheds a lot of light on a variety of interesting, but rarely discussed, topics about the private lives of Civil War soldiers. Understandably, a lot of the more intimate information, letters, and diaries were probably destroyed long ago and so the topic suffers from a lack of material which makes it difficult to fully examine. But there is enough there to get an idea of what was going on behind closed doors at least. An amusing interview and one worth a listen if you think you've heard it all when it comes to the Civil War.

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