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Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

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Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#81

Post by watwut »

alphanullmeric wrote: post #70
watwut wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is zero reason to demand that drinking age is same as joining army age or voting age or owning gun age. It is absurd to demand same age for all these.

No it isn’t. You don’t get to cherry pick the scenarios that someone will be considered an adult for. Either you’re an adult or you aren’t, and “you’re an adult when it’s politically favourable to me” is not an acceptable compromise. I get the impression that you’d be the same type of person to defend the patriot act if it was made about tax evasion instead of terrorism.

> You don’t get to cherry pick the scenarios that someone will be considered an adult for.

That is absurd claim. We in fact do get to chery pick scenarios in which someone is mature enough for X and not yet mature enough for Y. That isbjust simple logic, it is irrational to demand that different situations are treated the same.

Patriot act, taxes and terroris have literally zero to do with anything.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#82

Post by watwut »

consilient wrote: post #75
alphanullmeric wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn’t. You don’t get to cherry pick the scenarios that someone will be considered an adult for. Either you’re an adult or you aren’t, and “you’re an adult when it’s politically favourable to me” is not an acceptable compromise. I get the impression that you’d be the same type of person to defend the patriot act if it was made about tax evasion instead of terrorism.

> You don’t get to cherry pick the scenarios that someone will be considered an adult for. But we do get to pick and choose which privileges we extend to minors, and when. A 16 year old has no legal right to consume alcohol, but that only means that we can ban them from doing so, not that we have to.

And in fact, in Germany they have that legal right. Reality is that these lines are not universal.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#83

Post by Clubber »

shkkmo wrote: post #78
Clubber wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the night of December 26, Major Anderson's men were ordered to turn their overcoats to hide the military buttons and to take off their caps, so as to be taken for the civilian laborers who passed daily between Forts Sumter and Moultrie. The ruse was successful, a turncoat matter one might say. The act of soldiers posing as civilians in war historically has been viewed as an act of perfidy. With the ruse, Union tro…

Even with your extremely selective quoting, (including the exclusion of what that ruse was required and the food shortage that necessitated resupply) there is still nothing there that qualifies as a invasion.

>your extremely selective quoting

If you read the article I linked, Anderson took the fort on his own accord. Did you want me to paste the entire article in here or something? What's extremely selective about it? I linked the article.

>including the exclusion of what that ruse was required

Got any references or anything to explain what you mean?

>food shortage that necessitated resupply

Anderson took the fort and held it for three months. I'm certain he needed resupply. Did you think the CSA was gonna give him food after he took their fort?

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#84

Post by cryptonector »

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #38
UncleOxidant wrote: post #30

A bit of an aside, but it seems like the South would've had a lot fewer able-bodied, young men to fight the war especially since they weren't inclined to arm black soldiers. Given that the south was primarily agrarian with fewer urban areas to draw from - the population was more sparse. How did the confederacy think they could win given that difference?

I don't know if they truly thought they could win as much as they had to fight. With the Westward expansion of the U.S., more and more states would be admitted to the union that would never be as slave dependent as the South. In that scenario, the political power of the slavers gets diluted and chattel slavery ends with the stroke of a pen. They simply couldn't stick around for that situation to take place.

Also, the economic and industrial might of the North, and the lack of industrialization in the South (slavery didn't help) meant that the disparities between military and economic might between the North and South were bound to get larger, much larger, so many in the South must have felt that 1861 was the last time they might be able to secede successfully.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#85

Post by lmm »

delecti wrote: post #28
earthboundkid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my grandfathers joined the Navy before Pearl Harbor (Wikipedia says the draft started in 1940, so in '40 or '41) to avoid getting drafted into the Army. Not sure why he thought boats were safer, but I guess he lived, so he was right. :-)

I can't easily find a nice and comprehensive comparison, but it seems like he was right even with Pearl Harbor included. From [1]: > Total U.S. military deaths in battle and from other causes were 407,316. The breakout by service is as follows: Army 318,274 (234,874 battle, 83,400 nonbattle),[292] Navy 62,614,[292] Marine Corps 24,511,[292] and the Coast Guard 1,917.[570][320] I don't know what the denominator looks…

I've read that being a civilian in the Merchant Navy was more dangerous than being in the armed forces.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#86

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #64
alphanullmeric wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick an age of majority. It should be the same age for joining the military, voting, drinking, owning a gun, driving a car, consent, etc. You don’t get to call a 16 year old a child only when it’s convenient for you.

There is zero reason to demand that drinking age is same as joining army age or voting age or owning gun age. It is absurd to demand same age for all these.

[deleted]

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#87

Post by jki275 »

lmm wrote: post #85
delecti wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't easily find a nice and comprehensive comparison, but it seems like he was right even with Pearl Harbor included. From [1]: > Total U.S. military deaths in battle and from other causes were 407,316. The breakout by service is as follows: Army 318,274 (234,874 battle, 83,400 nonbattle),[292] Navy 62,614,[292] Marine Corps 24,511,[292] and the Coast Guard 1,917.[570][320] I don't know what the denominator looks…

I've read that being a civilian in the Merchant Navy was more dangerous than being in the armed forces.

We lost a lot of those ships.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#88

Post by musicale »

watwut wrote: post #64
alphanullmeric wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pick an age of majority. It should be the same age for joining the military, voting, drinking, owning a gun, driving a car, consent, etc. You don’t get to call a 16 year old a child only when it’s convenient for you.

There is zero reason to demand that drinking age is same as joining army age or voting age or owning gun age. It is absurd to demand same age for all these.

> There is zero reason to demand that drinking age is same as joining army age

"Drinks like a soldier" doesn't have the same ring to it.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#89

Post by giraffe_lady »

philwelch wrote: post #60
UncleOxidant wrote: post #30

A bit of an aside, but it seems like the South would've had a lot fewer able-bodied, young men to fight the war especially since they weren't inclined to arm black soldiers. Given that the south was primarily agrarian with fewer urban areas to draw from - the population was more sparse. How did the confederacy think they could win given that difference?

The will to fight is also a finite resource in war. There was also no material way that North Vietnam or the Taliban could prevail in a straight up fight; the strategy in all these cases was to inflict enough death and destruction that the United States would give up and sue for peace.

Isn't that fairly contemporary theory though? Is there any historical record of confederate leadership using that language or applying those concepts? I'm sure someone over there had read clausewitz but I've never heard of this stuff being applied by any american military before like maaaybe ww1, a little bit.

Re: Underage Enlistment in the United States and the Confederacy

#90

Post by itairall »

earthboundkid wrote: post #19
Vvector wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad lied and joined the Navy at 16, during the Korean War. He said it was safer than waiting to be drafted

One of my grandfathers joined the Navy before Pearl Harbor (Wikipedia says the draft started in 1940, so in '40 or '41) to avoid getting drafted into the Army. Not sure why he thought boats were safer, but I guess he lived, so he was right. :-)

My grandfather joined the Navy at 17 in 1943 and never spoke about it. I assumed when he was alive he didn't do much in the war but in researching his ship it was the complete opposite.

The Battle of Leyte Gulf was the biggest naval battle in history. If he was in the pacific I am sure he seen some crazy things.

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