Talk:American Civil War

Transwikied from wikipedia:en. History:

11:24, 25 April 2006 Ligulem (qif → #if: (see m:ParserFunctions) using AWB) 01:31, 1 April 2006 Dmcdevit (mass-AFD tagging using AWB) 00:52, 19 March 2006 Melchoir 00:46, 19 March 2006 WillaimWestchester

Hitler quote
This page contains the following quote attributed to Hitler:

"Since the civil war, in which the southern states were conquered, against all historical logic and sound sense, the American people have been in a condition of political and popular decay... The beginnings of a great new social order based on the principle of slavery and inequality were destroyed by that war, and with them also the embryo of a future truly great America that would not have been ruled by a corrupt caste of tradesmen, but by a real Herren-class that would have swept away all the falsities of liberty and equality."

There is no source for this quote within the article, and it is paired next to what I believe to be an image of an Arkansas Confederate battle-flag called Hardee's Moon. While I will admit some ignorance on my part regarding this flag, I do not understand why it is paired with a quote by Hitler, which is not sourced. Harry Sibelius (talk) 05:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

McCarthy quote
Why is the first quote on this page one taken from Kevin McCarthy, the current US Republican house minority leader? It is right above "contemporaries." Why is he placed at the head of the article, before contemporaries and historians? Harry Sibelius (talk) 05:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Surplus





 * For an entire century after 1815, by contrast, there was a remarkable absence of lengthy coalition wars. A strategic equilibrium existed, supported by all of the leading Powers in the Concert of Europe, so that no single nation was either able or willing to make a bid for dominance. The prime concerns of government in these post-1815 decades were with domestic instability and (in the case of Russia and the United States) with further expansion across their continental landmasses. This relatively stable international scene allowed the British Empire to rise to its zenith as a global power, in naval and colonial and commercial terms, and also interacted favorably with its virtual monopoly of steam-driven industrial production. By the second half of the nineteenth century, however, industrialization was spreading to certain other regions, and was beginning to tilt the international power balances away from the older leading nations and toward those countries with both the resources and organization to exploit the newer means of production and technology. Already, the few major conflicts of this era—the Crimean War to some degree but more especially the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War—were bringing defeat upon those societies which failed to modernize their military systems, and which lacked the broad-based industrial infrastructure to support the vast armies and much more expensive and complicated weaponry now transforming the nature of war.
 * Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1989)


 * We feel a particular horror at civil wars both because they rip apart the bonds that hold societies together and because they are so often marked by unrestrained violence towards the other side. The American Civil War probably had more casualties than all other American wars combined. Some 3 million men fought out of a total population of 30 million and at least 600,000 died and another 500,000 were injured. (The equivalent number of dead today with a much larger American population would be closer to 5 million.) Civilians, perhaps 150,000, died too, as a result of direct violence or starvation and disease. If anything civil wars have been increasing since 1945 as wars between states become rarer. Greece, Nigeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Congo, Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia: the list is long and touches much of the world. Establishing the numbers of deaths in such conflicts is difficult if not impossible, partly because often there are no good records. And which deaths are the result of war? Do we count only the combatants or those who support them? Also the deaths as a result of starvation or disease as a result of war? So estimates run from 25 million dead in civil wars since 1945 to far lower but still horrifying figures, and we need also to take account of the millions of refugees fleeing the violence.
 * Margaret MacMillan, War: How Conflict Shapes Us (2020)


 * At the time of the Civil War, general regulations specified that the surgeon would ascertain whether a draftee's "limbs are well formed and sufficiently muscular ... his chest is ample and well formed, in due proportion to his height and with power of full expansion ... whether the abdomen is well formed and not too protuberant ..." (Baxter, 1875). Height and chest circumference measurements were to be considered, but only as part of the screening physician's subjective "estimate of the man's physical capacity." These regulations were influenced by standards imposed by European armies, such as the British and French, which involved minimum heights and chest circumferences. However, in those countries, the standards were administered by the recruiting officer in advance of any medical screening. Weight was less consistently assessed during the Civil War but if used, it was by a screening physician to evaluate for underweight, not overweight (Ordronaux, 1863). Nevertheless, conscripts with notable obesity, such as one 51-inch man weighing 313 pounds, were exempted (Baxter, 1875). Colonel Jedidiah Baxter (1875) summarized the rationale for physical standards of his time: Weight is not a regulated quality in any code of laws governing the enlistment of recruits. The circumference of chest thought to be indispensable as an accompaniment to certain degrees of stature, is carefully laid down in the English regulations, but weight is not even mentioned. It is presumed that the matter is left to the discretion of the examining surgeon, with whom the decision as to the other qualities named might, it is thought, be also left with advantage. A due proportion in the weight is quite as essential in the soldier as a well-formed chest, and is of greater importance than lofty stature. In former times, when it was necessary to make use of a ramrod in loading a musket, men of a certain height were absolutely necessary for the service; but in these days of breech-loading arms, a man from 5 feet to 5 feet 4 inches in stature, and well proportioned in build and weight is, ceteris paribus, as serviceable a soldier as can be desired. Thus, it was a physician's subjective assessment of a recruit's suitability to the demands of military service that determined Civil War selections, and this evaluation emphasized adequate weight, height, and chest size. The first U.S. Army table of weight-for-height was published later, in 1887 (Reed and Love, 1932).
 * Karl E. Fried, “Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services”, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research; Marriott BM, Grumstrup-Scott J, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1990.


 * [T]he minimum height for U.S. soldiers was 66 inches early in the nineteenth century and has progressively lowered, with the least stringent requirements (no minimum height standard during part of the Civil War) coinciding with national emergencies when new recruits were in greater demand.
 * Karl E. Fried, “Body Composition and Physical Performance: Applications For the Military Services”, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research; Marriott BM, Grumstrup-Scott J, editors. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1990.