You know, arguing with an SF soldier is like wrestling with a pig, you bith get dirty, but the pig loves it.

Kind of like lawyers, I suspect, though you are definitely better paid for it.

That is the beauty in my situation. I have history on both sides of the conflict, and can take credit for both.

TR

Oink! LOL

I don't know about your initial research, but mine, based on Generals in Gray and Generals in Blue, both by Ezra Warner, the Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War, The Civil War Dictionary, the Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903 and various online sources including the biographies of members of Congress and various state government officials, indicates:

Of 427 Confederate generals, 162 were lawyers before the war. This comes to 38% and represents the largest single profession among Confederate generals, more even than professional U.S. Army officers.

Of 582 Union generals (excluding brevet brigadier generals not further promoted or given responsibilities commensurate with being a general officer), 175 were lawyers before the war. This comes to 30%. I am not sure, but I think here too lawyers are the most overrepresented profession.

I find it unsurprising that lawyers were heavily represented among general officers, and especially so in the South. There are a number of reasons why this might be so:

1. Lawyers are professionals. Professionals were overrepresented in the Civil War militaries for two reasons. One is the officer corps bias toward education as a measure of leadership skill (something we still see today). The other is the fact that planters and businessmen, for example, might be underrepresented because they are more important to the civilian economy in wartime.

2. Lawyers were probably slightly overrepresented in the South to the extent that the merchant and banking classes were underrepresented, since the North had a larger middle class.

3. It has been often noted that in the antebellum South, second and younger sons of landed estate-holders went into the military because the laws of primogeniture meant that only the eldest son would inherit the estate. But besides the Army, many of these sons also went into the law. Many, of course, did both, graduating from West Point, serving on the frontier, then pursuing the law with perhaps an eye on politics.

4. Lawyers are always overrepresented among politicians, and politicians were overrepresented among generals, especially early in the war when every Senator Tom, Congressman Dick and Lt. Governor Harry decided to raise his own regiment. Many secessionist politicians were also willing to put their money and lives where their mouths were, and went to the front (where quite a few were killed or wounded). I suppose the same might have been true among abolitionists - Robert Gould Shaw would likely have made general had he lived.

That's just generals. There were also plenty of colonels, majors, captains and others who were members of the bar. And not limited to officers: Logan Edwin Bleckley was solicitor-general for the Coweta Circuit in Georgia when he enlisted as a private. He was soon discharged for health reasons and rose to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Henry Massey Rector, Governor of Arkansas at secession, enlisted as a private in the Arkansas State Militia after leaving the governor's mansion in 1862. Ebenezer Allen, who had served as Attorney-General of the Texas Republic and later of the State of Texas, enlisted at the age of 57 and died in Virginia in 1863.

I used the University of Tennessee's database and just going through a couple of groups, found a ratio of 9 Confederate generals who had been lawyers to 14 Union generals who had also been attorneys in my sample, thus my 1:1.5 ratio. I did a direct comparison, BTW not a percentage of the total numbers.

I could have counted them all, but did not see the relevance of a peripheral discussion when the primary point of my response about Insurrection vs. Civil War remained unanswered by RL, who asked the question.

I have no reason to doubt your numbers, but find it significantly different from my sample.

I understood the social reasons for service based on primogeniture, and also the numbers who attended USMA, did their initial tour, and got out to go into business.

TR

1. There is no such thing as "Palestinian people" - they are Jordanian.
2. They didn't get screwed, they screwed themselves.
3. The bombing of the King David Hotel is a classic example of terrorism. However, the English put their military HQ in that hotel, so they should have expected it. I thought the warning was a nice touch.

I started anecdotally, looking at various sources such as Congressional bios which noted Confederate service. Then I went for a sample, but looking at various samples showed wide discrepancies, so I looked at all generals.

BTW, you invited the peripheral discussion since you reacted to RL's slight of Confederate military prowess by attacking lawyers. RL is a lawyer, but he is not a soldier. As far as I know, I am the only lawyer on the forum who is also a soldier, so I take somewhat more offense than he does. But not that much... :cool:

In any event, even if it were true that there were more lawyers in Union ranks than Confederate, you would not have proven anything. You can cite a Sickles and I can cite an Early, but what does that prove? To make the argument, you would not need to show that lawyers were overrepresented among generals, but rather that they were overrepresented among incompetent generals. Further, you would need some rational basis for arguing that it was their lawyerliness that was the reason for their incompetence. After all, anecdotally, we can easily point to a number of less-than-competent Union generals who were professional military officers.

By the way, Sickles was probably not even the worst Union lawyer/general. How about John Alexander McClernand or Nathaniel Prentiss Banks? And on the Confederate side, you have John Buchanan Floyd and Gideon Pillow, generals who deserted their men.

LOL -- I'm not offended by attacks on lawyers. I can't stand lawyers! But Reaper did NOT like it when I pointed out that the South got its ass kicked, which it did.

I've been traveling all day and surfing via Blackberry. So I just called in the heavy arty and AL leveled everything in sight. :D

AL:

I have just manually tabulated the numbers and while your count of GOs and Union lawyer generals is almost spot on, you appear to have overcounted Confederate generals who were lawyers significantly.

I am only getting 150 of 420, are you sure that you are not counting post-war lawyers as well?

Due to the engineering degrees awarded at that point from the USMA, I would have expected a disproportionate number of engineers by civilian profession.

In poring over the rolls, I was surprised at how many names were familiar to me for both wartime and post-war service.

To do this comparison properly, we would need to look at senior leadership at selected levels for a qualitative review. Unfortunately, the CSA fielded LTGs and GENs well before the Union did, so a relevant analysis would have to consider positional comparisons at the various grades as well. Performance at different battles as well as in administrative functions could be spotty too, so an overall rating system would have to be developed. All in all, an excellent topic for a thesis, but hardly likely to be resolved here.

TR

I still disagree.

You need to pony up and fight your own battles, when you are the one making the allegation.

Unless you know you are wrong.

You still haven't replied to my argument against the claim that the civil war was an insurrection.

TR

The field size on my Blackberry is not large enough to allow me to engage in serious discussion. I doubt I will be on-line tonight after I get home since I have been gone for a week, but I will go back through the thread and reply over the weekend or Monday.

Oh, and one of the things I have learned from you gentlemen is that I do not need to fight my own battles. It is far better to win the battle without fighting, either through psyops or by convincing others to do it for me while I down a few cold ones. ;)

uh...your PSYOP is weak...you seem to have no impact on key communicators... :munchin

And there is the difference between a QP and a "Not". A QP knows that if you start bragging about it, they will all turn on you and run you out of the Base Camp.

I said 162, you said 150. That difference doesn't sound like "significantly". ;) In any event, I either miscounted initially or on review, because now I come up with 158. There are probably discrepancies between some lists, based for example on some field promotions not confirmed by Richmond or made posthumously. You might quibble over a couple, too - Wade Hampton, for instance, studied law but didn't go into practice before becoming a legislator.

Lieutenant General, CSA:

1. Early, Jubal Anderson

Major General, CSA; Lieutenant General, state forces:

1. Hampton, Wade

Major Generals, CSA:

1. Allen, William Wirt (temporary)
2. Anderson, James Patton
3. Bagby, Arthur Pendleton (temporary, not confirmed by Richmond)
4. Bate, William Brimage
5. Breckenridge, John Cabell
6. Brown, John Calvin
7. Butler, Matthew Calbraith
8. Clayton, Henry Delamar
9. Cleburne, Patrick Ronayne
10. Cobb, Howell
11. Gordon, John Brown
12. Hindman, Thomas Carmichael
13. Humes, William Young Conn
14. Kemper, James Lawson
15. Kershaw, Joseph Brevard
16. Loring, William Wing
17. Martin, William Thompson
18. Maxey, Samuel Bell (not confirmed by Richmond)
19. Parsons, Mosby Monroe (not confirmed by Richmond)
20. Smith, William "Extra Billy"
21. Walthall, Edward Cary
22. Wharton, John Austin
23. Withers, Jones Mitchell
24. Wright, Ambrose Ransom "Rans"

Brigadier Generals, CSA; Major Generals, state forces:

1. Bonham, Milledge Luke
2. Floyd, John Buchanan
3. Gholson, Samuel Jameson
4. Jackson, Henry Rootes

Brigadier Generals, CSA:

1. Adams, Daniel Weisiger
2. Alcorn, James Lusk
3. Allen, Henry Watkins
4. Archer, James Jay
5. Baker, Alpheus
6. Barringer, Rufus Clay
7. Battle, Cullen Andrews
8. Beale, Richard Lee Turberville
9. Benning, Henry Lewis
10. Benton, Samuel
11. Branch, Lawrence O'Bryan
12. Brantley, William Felix
13. Brevard, Theodore Washington
14. Campbell, Alexander William
15. Cantey, James
16. Carter, John Carpenter
17. Chalmers, James Ronald
18. Chesnut, James Jr.
19. Clanton, James Holt
20. Clark, John Bullock Jr.
21. Clingman, Thomas Lanier
22. Cobb, Thomas Reade Rootes
23. Cockrell, Francis Marion
24. Colquitt, Alfred Holt
25. Conner, James
26. Cook, Philip
27. Cox, William Ruffin
28. Davis, Joseph Robert
29. Davis, William George Mackey
30. DuBose, Dudley Mciver
31. Duke, Basil Wilson
32. Echols, John
33. Ector, Matthew Duncan
34. Evans, Clement Anselm
35. Featherston, Winfield Scott
36. Finegan, Joseph
37. Finley, Jesse Johnson
38. Forney, William Henry
39. Garland, Samuel Jr.
40. Garrott, Isham Warren
41. Gartrell, Lucius Jeremiah
42. Gary, Martin Witherspoon
43. Gist, States Rights
44. Granbury, Hiram Bronson
45. Gray, Henry
46. Gregg, John
47. Gregg, Maxcy
48. Hagood, Johnson
49. Hanson, Roger Weightman
50. Harris, Nathaniel Harrison
51. Harrison, Thomas
52. Hatton, Robert Hopkins
53. Hawthorn, Alexander Travis
54. Hays, Harry Thompson
55. Helm, Benjamin Hardin
56. Hodge, George Baird
57. Hogg, Joseph Lewis
58. Holtzclaw, James Thadeus
59. Humphreys, Benjamin Grubb
60. Hunton, Eppa
61. Imboden, John Daniel
62. Iverson, Alfred, Jr.
63. Jackson, John King
64. Jackson, William Lowther
65. Jenkins, Albert Gallatin
66. Johnson, Bradley Tyler
67. Johnston, George Doherty
68. Johnston, Robert Daniel
69. Kennedy, John Doby
70. Lawton, Alexander Robert
71. Lee, Edwin Gray
72. Lewis, Joseph Horace
73. Lowry, Robert
74. McGowan, Samuel
75. McRae, Dandridge
76. Marshall, Humphrey
77. Miller, William
78. Morgan, John Tyler
79. Nelson, Allison
80. Nicholls, Francis Redding Tillou
81. O'Neal, Edward Asbury
82. Palmer, Joseph Benjamin
83. Paxton, Elisha Franklin
84. Payne, William Henry FitzHugh
85. Perrin, Abner Monroe
86. Perry, Edward Aylesworth
87. Pettigrew, James Johnston
88. Pettus, Edmund Winston
89. Pike, Albert
90. Pillow, Gideon Johnson
91. Posey, Carnot
92. Preston, John Smith
93. Preston, William
94. Pryor, Roger Atkinson
95. Quarles, William Andrew
96. Rains, James Edward
97. Randolph, George Wythe
98. Ransom, Matt Whitaker
99. Reynolds, Daniel Harris
100. Richardson, Robert Vinkler
101. Rust, Albert
102. Scales, Alfred Moore
103. Sharp, Jacob Hunter
104. Shoup, Francis Asbury
105. Simms, James Phillip
106. Slack, William Yarnel
107. Smith, Preston
108. Strahl, Otho French
109. Tappan, James Camp
110. Terrill, James Barbour
111. Terry, William
112. Thomas, Allen
113. Toombs, Robert Augustus
114. Tracy, Edward Dorr
115. Tucker, William Feimster
116. Walker, James Alexander
117. Walker, Leroy Pope
118. Wallace, William Henry
119. Waul, Thomas Neville
120. Wickham, Williams Carter
121. Wigfall, Louis Trezevant
122. Williams, John Stuart
123. Wilson, Claudius Charles
124. Wise, Henry Alexander
125. Wofford, William Tatum
126. Wood, Sterling Alexander Martin
127. Wright, Marcus Joseph
128. York, Zebulon

AL:

We are only as good as our references.

Using the records I have access to right now, I have reviewed your list of 158 Confederate Generals who were lawyers before the Civil War. I am not seeing that the following ever practiced law or were identified as lawyers. Were they all recognized by the Bar? I will look them up individually tomorrow:

Hampton, Wade
Allen, William Wirt
Anderson, James Patton
Bate, William Brimmage (listed as a lawyer post-war)
Davis, William George Mackey (listed as a lawyer post-war)
Wright, Marcus (listed as a law clerk, not as a lawyer)

The following are not listed as Confederate General Officers in my sources:

Alcorn, James Lusk
Bagby, Arthur Pendleton

I did see Maney, George Earl, confirmed as a CSA BG April 1862 showing as a lawyer before the war on one list, so if so, he would make it 151 Confederate Generals who were lawyers before the Civil War.

TR