[Marxism] Joseph Weydemeyer; Engels supplied the North cannon through Weydemeyer ?

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

charles, you don't believe above, do you... Mh

^^^^^

CB: Because this guy is right wing or something , who thinks he is
"exposing" the North as "communist" , by "exposing" Engels and Marx's
support for the North ?

Well,I guess I should have put a question mark by the sending of cannon.
Isn't the only questionable and new part the supplying of cannon ? The rest
I have read before.

My understanding is that the plan that Engels wrote about ( in a long
article which is in the Collected Works) a while before Sherman's actual
march, was a plan for something like Sherman's march, to cut the Southern
main supply route off. This was the crtiical strategic act for the North to
win, and Engels the great military scientist had pronounced it in theory
before Sherman's practice.

I guess that notion that Weydemeyer didn't do anything without Marx and
Engels' approval is exaggerated, but he was something of a protégé of theirs
,no ? My understanding is the Weydemeyer emigrated to the U.S. as part of a
collective decision in which Marx and Engels were prominent. Marx and Engels
functioned as something of an thinktank for Lincoln, writng to him directly.

This is the first I heard of actually supplying cannon. I thought it more
plausible because Engels had served in the artillery corps during the 1848
German revolutionary struggles.




Here's where Engels and Marx essay Sherman's march theoretically.
Neo-Confederates help "expose" this connection.




http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/03/26.htm
Articles by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in Die Presse 1862

The American Civil War

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

Source: MECW Volume 19, p. 186
Written: between March 7 and 22, 1862;
First published: in Die Presse, 85, March 26 and 27, 1862.

-clip-
In densely populated and more or less centralised states there is always a
centre, with the occupation of which by the enemy the national resistance
would be broken. Paris is a brilliant example. The slave states, however,
possess no such centre. They are sparsely populated, with few large towns
and all these on the seacoast. The question therefore arises: Does a
military centre of gravity nevertheless exist, with the capture of which the
backbone of their resistance will be broken, or are they, just as Russia
still was in 1812, not to be conquered without occupying every village and
every plot of land, in short, the entire periphery? 

Cast a glance at the geographical shape of the secessionists? territory,
with its long stretch of coast on the Atlantic Ocean and its long stretch of
coast on the Gulf of Mexico. So long as the Confederates held Kentucky and
Tennessee, the whole formed a great compact mass. The loss of both these
states drives an enormous wedge into their territory, separating the states
on the North Atlantic Ocean from the States on the Gulf of Mexico. The
direct route from Virginia and the two Carolinas to Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and even, in part, to Alabama leads through Tennessee, which is
now occupied by the Unionists. The sole route that, after the complete
conquest of Tennessee by the Union, connects the two sections of the slave
states goes through Georgia. This proves that Georgia is the key to the
secessionists? territory. With the loss of Georgia the Confederacy would be
cut into two sections, which would have lost all connection with one
another. A reconquest of Georgia by the secessionists, however, would be
almost unthinkable, for the Unionist fighting forces would be concentrated
in a central position, while their adversaries, divided into two camps,
would have scarcely sufficient forces to put in the field for a joint
attack.

Would the conquest of all Georgia, with the seacoast of Florida, be required
for such an operation? By no means. In a land where communication,
particularly between distant points, depends much more on railways than on
highways, the seizure of the railways is sufficient. The southernmost
railway line between the States on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic coast
goes through Macon and Gordon near Milledgeville.

The occupation of these two points would accordingly cut the secessionists?
territory in two and enable the Unionists to beat one part after another. At
the same time, one gathers from the above that no Southern republic is
viable without the possession of Tennessee. Without Tennessee, Georgia?s
vital spot lies only eight or ten days? march from the frontier; the North
would constantly have its hand at the throat of the South, and, at the
slightest pressure, the South would have to yield or fight for its life
anew, under circumstances in which a single defeat would cut off every
prospect of success.

>From the foregoing considerations it follows:

The Potomac is not the most important position in the war theatre. The
seizure of Richmond and the advance of the Potomac army further south ?
difficult on account of the many rivers that cut across the line of march
-could produce a tremendous moral effect. From a purely military standpoint,
they would decide nothing.

The outcome of the campaign depends on the Kentucky army, now in Tennessee.
On the one hand, this army is nearest to the decisive points; on the other
hand, it occupies a territory without which secession cannot survive. This
army would accordingly have to be strengthened at the expense of all the
rest and the sacrifice of all minor operations. Its next points of attack
would be

Chattanooga and Dalton on the Upper Tennessee, the most important railway
junctions of the entire South. After their occupation, the link between the
eastern and western states of Secessia would be limited to the lines of
communication in Georgia. The further problem would then be to cut off
another railway line, with Atlanta and Georgia, and finally to destroy the
last link between the two sections by the capture of Macon and Gordon.

On the contrary, should the anaconda plan be followed, then, despite all the
successes gained at particular points and even on the Potomac, the war may
be prolonged indefinitely, while the financial difficulties together with
diplomatic complications acquire fresh scope.

 

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