From the great Clyde Wilson. But that estimable mag refused to publish it. Of course, LRC is delighted to remedy this oversight.
"Mr. Andrew Bacevich (in the March 14 issue) makes some perceptive and wholesomely moral observations on "The Living Room War." However, he spoils it all when he starts out by likening Ft. Sumter to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. The last two were massive sneak attacks by foreign enemies. The firing on Fort Sumter was preceded by a gentlemanly warning and was completely bloodless. It would not have happened at all if Lincoln had not dissimulated about re-enforcements and had a hostile fleet just outside. Nor does Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops after the fall of Fort Sumter at all resemble American unity and determination after Pearl Harbor. To begin with, the call for troops was illegal, and the 75,000 was either mistaken or deceptive since the conquest of the Southern people and destruction of their state governments eventually required over a million men. Further more, its immediate effect was to drive four more states out of the Union and require immediate military occupation to forestall the secession of three others. And despite a temporary upsurge of militancy after Sumter, Lincoln's government never had the degree of support in the North for its actions that characterized the public in the two more recent events. Several hundred thousand men evaded the draft by various means, many others were enlisted by cash bonuses, public speakers and newspapers had to be suppressed, and a fourth of the army had to be recruited abroad. When this kind of folklore is invoked, putting Southerners in the basket with Tojo and Ben Laden, we despair of the possibility of collaboration with nationalist conservatives.
Clyde Wilson
Columbia SC"
