“The record of CSA revolver and carbine production reads like a bad joke.” That’s why they used three-band Enfields. And scavenged Yankee gear. Read “The Black Flower” and other novels by Howard Bahr to get an idea of what a Confederate infantryman’s life was like towards the end of the war. Hunger was the main theme.

Columbus was a major foundry and shipbuilding center, thanks to its location on the Chattahoochee River. The ironclad CSS Muscogee/CSS Jackson was built there. It was burned to the waterline at Columbus in April 1865, raised from the river in the 1960s, and is now on display–the hull, that is–at the museum. It’s a big sucker: over 200 feet long. And broad in the beam.

Selma, Alabama was another military manufacturing center for the CSA. There’s a lathe from the Selma works in front of Samford Hall at Auburn University, symbolizing the mechanical arts leg of the old land-grant university triad (the other two being agriculture and “military science”). Wonder how long its presence there will be tolerated. It would take some industrial-grade commitment to de-pedestal it and haul it off.

“Highly recommended for anyone traveling in the area. I was surprised by the scope of submarine operations during the Civil War, including the first-in-history sinking of a ship (the USS Housatonic) by a fully submersible craft (the CSS Hunley) outside Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1864. Trench warfare, ironclad ships, repeating rifles, the Gatling Gun, and submarine operations …”

Anyone interested in the development of technology will be fascinated by the developments that took place during the Civil War.

What is most striking to me are two things [ placing aside all moral considerations] :

1. The incredible strategic irresponsibility and sheer vainglorious stupidity of the South Carolinians ( a certain subset of them obviously) in precipitating a wholly unnecessary and ill-advised military conflict. This is what happens when people let their emotions and egos run roughshod over the intellect.

2. The extraordinary lengths to which Southern authorities went to make-shift and make do (scavenging battlefields for dropped weapons, and homesteads for copper and nitrates); with some marginal success on occasion. How they managed to engineer and then produce anything at all given their resources and infrastructure [and the vulnerable areas in which much of it was originally located], is a wonder. They could not even reliably supply gunpowder, or explosive shells that worked.

But given what little industrial type infrastructure or facilities those states did have, it is probably understandable that their more impressive constructive accomplishments were on the larger scale.

A natural result I think of trying to equip a fighting force using locomotive and boiler repair depots, while lacking virtually any tool, die, production, or precision manufacturing capabilities.

The record of CSA revolver and carbine production reads like a bad joke.

Thanks for that historical tidbit. Coincidentally, I recently visited the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia:

https://www.portcolumbus.org/

Highly recommended for anyone traveling in the area. I was surprised by the scope of submarine operations during the Civil War, including the first-in-history sinking of a ship (the USS Housatonic) by a fully submersible craft (the CSS Hunley) outside Charleston, South Carolina, in February 1864. Trench warfare, ironclad ships, repeating rifles, the Gatling Gun, and submarine operations–the American Civil War was indeed a preview of later conflicts and their unpleasant surprises. Which might not have been surprises if anybody from the real armies had paid close attention to what those former colonials were up to in the Shenandoah Valley and environs. In the Quirks of Military History category, see also: the German OKW paying attention to the Red Army’s performance in the Winter War instead of at Khalkhin-Gol. Might have identified an up-and-comer named Zhukov.

I’m guessing Jenner’s candidacy is a PR stunt. Have any Democrats yet announced against him?

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/rejecting-the–proposition-nation-/

Being a polite and civilized publication it doesn’t speculate as to why Strauss, Jaffa, and later CivNats twisted things as simple as the Declaration, and the eventual Constitution with the well-known debates around its adoption into an n-Dimensional Hyperspace Propositional Pretzel requiring graduate seminar level exegesis of the inner thought processes of Moses Maimonedes… Oops I mean Saint Abraham Lincoln, heir to a Judaeo-Christian (what, precisely *is* that?) tradition dreamed up out of thin air and manufactured from whole cloth. I’m being a Big Bad Meanie here, no?

Before anyone jumps in I’m on the record as blaming a solid chunk of the troubles on the Puritan Strain Gone Bad –> Rabid Abolitionists –> Wilsonians –> Worse. But, there is a distinct whiff of something needlessly being over-complicated by hereditary scholarly folks who enjoy debating and creating complex arguments upon arguments about pretty damn straight and to the point ur-Texts. Sounds vaguely familiar to anyone? It may have happened with the best of Intentions. I suspect it probably did — there was a huge intellectual push to graft stuff onto the American Trunk after the Late Unpleasantness in Europe so that America would be forevermore a Safe Space ™. But look where we are now. How’s it working out for everyone?

The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions.

Not taking it (Newsom, not the other Thing) lying down is something we can all get on board with. Could do a lot worse than tie up the machinery of misgovernment with recalls and other obstructions.

My take on it is that Newsom only loses if another Dem runs.
Despite the 1.6M signatures, there are too many Dems in CA if it is Newsom vs Any-Repub.
As for Jenner, I doubt that any significant number will vote for him in any event.