Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd #297 — The US Civil War, Part 2: Bleeding Kansas (Patreon)

Published:
2021-09-29 18:06:09
Edited:
2021-10-23 14:26:05
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Recorded: September 23, 2021

The War Nerd takes time out from his Long March down the Italian peninsula to discuss the southern slavers' vicious dirty war in the Kansas territory, on the eve of the Civil War — and to recover the Confederacy's forgotten WMD plot against New York City.

Maps & Images:

* Map of US/Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

*Value of US Slave Stock, 1805-1860

*Rep. Preston Brooks (South Carolina) caning  Sen. Charles Sumner (Massachusetts)

Check out Part One of RWN's Civil War Series.

Buy John Dolan's book "The War Nerd Iliad" and his audiobook "Pleasant Hell".

Total time: 1:38:11

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Files

Comments

Jon Spiegler

Yeah I vote civil war into perpetuity

online Leftist Archive Project (LARP)

Which James McPherson book were you referencing at around the one hour mark? By the way.... a 20 part series on the American Civil War -- yes please. American history is often a SERIOUS weakness of leftish Americans, which is a lot of your listening base. It'd be a great educational opportunity. I know plenty of people on the American left who know more about the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Civil War / Maoism, and so forth than they do about the history of the country they live in. If you don't understand these battles over race, the economy, and the role of the state in America, you'll never even get what politics here is all about let alone be able to change them. It's utterly embarrassing when people in the US know more about Kornilov and Kerensky than John Brown and Jefferson Davis. Not boosting American exceptionalism or saying we shouldn't learn about Russia, but Christ, learn about the place where you actually live and (hopefully) organize first. The political economy of the United States has never, ever ever been similar to that of Russia in 1917. Time to stop telling ourselves fairy tales and deal with reality. (You can tell I've been hanging out with too many Trotskyists lol) On top of that, the American Civil War was an event of pretty profound world-historical significance. It basically remade the American nation-state into something almost completely different, and had pretty profound ramifications for the entire global economy as well. On top of that, this is clearly a topic both hosts but particularly John are well versed in. You did a really great series on Yeltsin's attack on the Duma since this was something you already had a strong interest in, I think playing to your strengths in this case would also go really well. Finally, the sectional divisions and the incompleteness of the Reconstruction project have pretty profound ramifications today. The Southern United States continues its backward ways and holds the entire country back on everything from voter rights to basic infrastructure maintenance (that fight is going on in Congress right now) to providing basic healthcare like vaccines, epidemic control and abortion. Its economic model is still based on a poorly educated, repressed labor force kept in line by religion and ethnic chauvinism and it hurts workers all over the country with its reactionary influence. We're even still debating whether to tear these stupid monuments to Confederate generals down. This really remains a flashpoint to this day and a 20-part series would do it justice.

HeyB00B00

If you want the nitty-gritty on the actual battles Jeffery the Librarian and War Eagle are killin it on youtube.

HeyB00B00

Jeez, Quantrill was a complete ass. I'll be subscribed for the next year just for this civil war series!

Red Herring McGuffin

I'd really love to see you guys have Matt Christman on if you keep talking about the civil war, or even this period of American history. He's been creating a series called Hell of Presidents and I find it really interesting.

Lo

Do a 20 part series on the US Civil War. Fucking absolutely do it. This is one of the weird wars in history where technological advances rapidly outpace tactics and still very few useful lessons penetrate the hidebound consciousness of the West Pointers who go on to “win the West.” I think you guys are making an admirable effort to not centralize the US in the podcast’s coverage, but the US Civil War truly is one of the greatest armed engagements in Ares’ fap-book and you’ve proven your non-provincial cred multiple times over. Let’s talk about the Minié ball and the rapid development of rifled munitions. Let’s talk about the development of the first iron clads. Let’s talk about railroad gauges and attempts to standardize ammunition supply trains (across a blockade, for the traitors). Let’s talk about all these things and everything else that laid the groundwork for the glorious horrors of the 20th century

Ryan Delaney

Fantastic episode Keep them coming! It is unbelievable how much the civil war has been burried and forgotten (saying this as a dumb american) 2 episodes in and I can already see how the structure of modern America rests on such broken foundation. Also it’s laughable how bad the American counter insurgency tactics were, well i guess they were all for show anyway

CR

Elliot

MORE

Jake Staniels

This series has been great and should go long. However many you feel it deserves. If you want to undo all the harms the mainstreamed revisionist, lost cause, both sides narrative… it may take 20 some episodes to straighten that crooked framework.

radiowarnerd

Thanks Matthew. I agree on the importance on the Civil War. I'm surprised that you know a lot of leftists who are well versed in Mao's wars though because what I see is a lot of people who are oddly obsessed with Russia and not very interested in Chinese history. We'll keep the episodes going as long as people want them. BTW the MacPherson book I referenced was Battle Cry of Freedom.

radiowarnerd

Thanks. Well, I've already written about the Ironclads and will definitely get to them because Merrimac vs Monitor is Ahura Mazda vs Ahriman for all right-thinking Americans.

radiowarnerd

"I can already see how the structure of modern America rests on such broken foundation" -- that's very true.

THEKILLERWHALE

This is also why I have never gotten more than 100 pages into Foner's "Reconstruction". I literally yelled at the book at one point. I couldn't take it. History's greatest missed opportunity.

no

Another banger let's goo

Anthony Schiappa

I'd like to add another vote to extending the series. For someone who grew up in the American public schools, and cares about this stuff, it's therapeutic. Relieved other people find it as maddening. If there's any tragedy to be had, it's that the opportunities to remake things after Union victory were squashed. Like you say, people did know better at the time; things could have been different. These don't feel like echoes to the modern US, it feels like we're still in its wake. Which isn't that crazy since, as discussed on an early episode, the war didn't *really* end until the mid 20th century.

Jack Straub

I would do dirty things to get as many of these episodes as you guys feel up to making! I believe you wrote once that the Civil War is comfort food for American war nerds and I love being turned onto the interesting stories that gets passed over in popular history like the yellow fever plot you mention here and August Willich.

orc

Need this series over plaintive music and black and white photos

Tim Hoogsteen

Hey! Great episode so far, I really liked that you touched on the Anglo press/elite's pro-South position, not enough Canadians know it, I only read about it recently. However, not to defend us too strongly, I think it's interesting that among actual Canadian civil war volunteers more than 90% joined with the Union. I think the pro-South position really was based on cruel interests in trade and money like you said, which would explain the class split in some ways. There's also a whole subplot about the idea of annexation of Canada, which Seward loudly supported and which the Brits and Canadian elite were very very scared of, and the story of the Trent crisis, all of which dominated Canadian politics and led pretty directly to Canadian confederation after the war (in some ways as a process to normalize those relations and resume reciprocal trade). There are also all the stories of spies and traitors in the cities, that you touched on. Anyway, great series so far! I'm learning a lot, looking forward to more!

G W

Really loving the civil war series. I would like to make a request for another Phillipine American war episode. Criminally under represented in American imperial wars. I can't find any good listening about it.

Ander Pierce

Like many others I fully support the production of many more RWN civil war episodes if Ames and Brecher feel like it, maybe just intersperse them with episodes on other topics like y'all have been doing already

Ander Pierce

Right?! Haha I had never heard of the yellow fever plot and probably never would have if not for the War Nerds

Kurt Ellis

20 more civil war episodes please!!!!!!!

Matthias Höck

The British support for the confederacy is a bit strange. English nobility had done a lot of land clearings, getting rid of their tenants and replacing the farms by sheep. The southern US cotton must have been a massive cut to the British wool profits, so why help the Confeds?

Brendan Mason

My vote is also for as many UCW episodes as you feel necessary.

Brendan Mason

British cotton mills got most of their raw cotton from the South. From memory even the North processed more cotton than the South did, the South having less industrial capacity than my dad's backyard shed.

Ian H

Seconding Brendan's point. It's also the case that a British imperial planner in the 1860's would have a strong preference for a version of America that relies on agriculture and raw material exports and is run by a corrupt and decadent aristocratic planter elite, as opposed to a rival industrial power run by capital interests and efficiency-minded bureaucrats. That second one seems much more likely to compete for market share and colonial dominions.

David Andrews

Fabulous episode again guys. Minor comment: please don't underestimate the depth of American historical amnesia. I'll bet fewer than 1% of us know who Charles Sumner was much less that he was savagely beaten. John... 99% of Americans don't know a damn thing about 80% of your content. Your audience are all on the extreme end of the curve.

Steve Mathews

Hey guys - just listening to this...I think you're missing something here. The reason the South freaked out whenever someone sexualized slavery was that both sides knew full well that slavery WAS sexual. The South had sex slaves and the North didn't. Imagine the different lifestyles. I reread prewar Southern speeches recently and once you admit the possibility that people were talking about sex, the outright LOVE that Southern men had for slavery becomes obvious and makes sense. I wonder if Daesh guys ever cribbed from Davis and Co. Great podcast as always!

Doug Cartel

I remember ta-nehisi coates writing waaay back in 2015 that slavery was the largest share of the economy on the eve of the civil war but Ed Baptists' book on slavery kind of drives it home by showing how slave productivity outpaced industrial productivity for *decades* and might have if the civil war was avoided. We will never know if there was a ceiling to the productivity gains cotton picking made.

Anthony Schiappa

Also, really happy you're having Eileen back on. "The Good Lord Bird" was great. The vicarious thrill of watching slave owners get comically blown to bits is worth the price of admission.

Anthony Schiappa

I think James Baldwin wrote about this especially well. It was essential to their self-conception, tapping into primordial fear that seems to explain their insanity more than money and political power alone.

Cameron Young

Yep, the mills and factories in Birmingham and central England needed southern cotton. I read Amanda Foreman’s “A world on fire” and would recommend most of it for Britain’s role in the civil war. These episodes just crack. Really like them.

Jason Thompson

So it’s good? I was kinda disappointed to find out it is (largely?) a comedy.

Anthony Schiappa

There is black humor in it, yeah, but I would not classify it as a comedy. The humor is appropriate for how deranged the time really was. It doesn’t flinch from the horrors of the subject matter, and avoids the mandatory solemnity. But it might not be everyone’s cup of tea.

etienne

buddy, we're all livin in it

Brendan Mason

The book it's based on is pretty funny, too. Arguably weirder than the series. (I love the series.)

Scott Eubanks

More of these civil war episodes please! I had no idea how refreshing a take on the civil war without the 'both sides / tragedy' lean could be. Keep them coming!

Kelly Cosman

Please do more civil war shows 🙏 these are amazing

suz

loving the civil war series and very excited about all the different ep topics you keep teasing!

PW

Enjoying this series and learning a lot!

Robert Rowe

I do not view this war as having EVER ended. But it needs to, badly. Sometimes, ethnic cleansing really is the best of a lot of bad options.

Robert Rowe

Sweet Jesus. And I'm not an Xtian, even. "The collective insanity of the oligarchy". Just a little bit of history repeating. https://youtu.be/yzLT6_TQmq8 We are so screwed.

Robert Rowe

Thanks for mentioning "The Good Lord Bird". I downloaded and binge read it.

pablo escobar’s hippos

Echoing all of the above. Sven Beckert puts the centrality of US cotton exports to the British economy at the outbreak of the Civil War in stark terms in his book, Empire of Cotton: about half of British exports were cotton yarn or cloth, about a tenth of all British capital was invested in the cotton industry, and between a fourth and a fifth of people living in Great Britain were employed in some aspect of the cotton industry. Really looking forward to this series, gentlemen! You’re doing me a solid releasing it ahead of the holiday season, which I plan to spend having some interesting talks with the townsfolk back home in Charleston, SC 😉

Vince

Little late to the comment-party but I'd just like to say that I'm absolutely loving this series, and in particular, I'd *really* like to hear whatever John has to say about "US-Civil-War-as-sectional-religious-conflict". You mentioned it a couple times in passing and i was suddenly struck with a burning desire to know absolutely everything about a topic i'd never even heard of before (your podcast has a way of doing that to folks!). In lieu of (or while waiting for) an episode on that, is there any reading anyone can recommend on that topic?

Jim Vail

Deja vu? As i was listening to Marks interesting tidbit on Stephen Douglass and his money interests, i look up to see Douglass Park as i round the corner on my way to work on my bike. The beautiful Douglass park was named after Stephen until activist students pressured to change the name to Frederick Douglass in a park surrounded by many slave descendants. But the chicago park district wouldn't budge until BLM protests forced the name change.

radiowarnerd

Good point, although " Maggie, A Girl of the Streets" suggests that things weren't quite as clean in northern cities either.

radiowarnerd

That pretty much sums it up. It's amazing we looked so good for a while in the mid-twentieth century.

radiowarnerd

When you listen to RWN #300, you'll see that Missouri was redeemed by the German immigrants, voted 98-1 to stay in the Union.

radiowarnerd

Basically, northern religion morphed into secular liberalism. Southern religion is going strong as explicit Calvinism. Thass the whole problem, as the feller said.

Tyler

So I just searched "James McPherson Bleeding Kansas" in Google, and the 6th result mentions Potawatomi in its title.

Colin

Are there any books that go in-depth on Canada’s pro-confederacy relationship?